


Reciprocity

by CatalenaMara, RenneMichaels, RenneMichaelsArt (RenneMichaels)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brief mention of marijuana use aka Bruce smokes pot, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, Jötunn Loki, Loki Does What He Wants, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-16 19:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11259435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatalenaMara/pseuds/CatalenaMara, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenneMichaels/pseuds/RenneMichaels, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenneMichaels/pseuds/RenneMichaelsArt
Summary: Instead of throwing Loki into a dungeon, Odin placed him in the care of Asgard’s healers.  Now Loki’s on parole back on Earth, magically restrained from doing anyone harm, there to help humans develop defenses and weapons in the coming war with Thanos.  Steve, at first highly skeptical, begins to believe in Loki’s redemption, eventually making Loki his project.  But Loki, who doesn’t want to be anyone’s project, is expert at maneuvering, even under what should be foolproof constraints.Steve already knows how they differ.  What surprises him is what they have in common.





	1. Molecular Gastronomy

**Author's Note:**

> “Reciprocity” is part of the Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017 and will be officially linked to that collection on my posting date of 06-29-17.
> 
> Because I am posting this story in chapters, [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/RenneMichaels/profile)[](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/RenneMichaels/)**RenneMichaels** “challenge” artwork which inspired this story will be revealed in the final chapter. As soon as I saw her piece I knew I wanted to write a story based on it, and fortunately I got my "first pick".
> 
> Many, many thanks to my betas [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Tenaya/profile)[**Tenaya**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Tenaya/) and [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/profile)[](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/)**Muriel_Perun**.

[PermaLink for Reciprocity Art](https://rennemichaelsart.tumblr.com/post/161898845231)

Steve remembered exactly how it had happened in clear and vivid detail:  Thor’s return to earth six months after the Battle of New York.  The disturbing things he told them in the presence of Fury and Coulson.  The even-more unsettling memory of what Thor told them about Loki when the SHIELD agents had left to report to the World Security Council and Thor got drunk and grief-stricken and guilt-ridden still had the power to chill Steve’s soul.  

But he still had a hard time believing how Thor’s second return to Earth several weeks later, his brother in tow, had led to the sight before his eyes:  the supervillain who had tried to destroy Manhattan sprawled comfortably on a sofa in the largest living room on the communal floor of Stark Tower, watching an enormous television screen.

Loki hadn’t bothered to look in his direction but one corner of his mouth had curled up in a half-smile.  So, he was aware of Steve’s presence, and typically planned to play some kind of game.

Loki’s return had been expected, but the change in him had been immediately obvious.  He’d looked healthy, his hair shorter and well groomed.  The dark circles beneath his eyes had been gone, and he no longer had that emaciated ravenous look to him.

Most importantly, that unhinged look in his eyes was gone.  Not only did he actually look sane, he appeared to be comfortable with Thor’s presence right beside him.  Given Thor’s drunken confidences, that had all made sense to Steve, and he immediately realized that, if everything Thor said was true, Loki could be a crucial asset in the fight to come.

Still, Steve had thought Loki would spend all of his time on the helicarrier or secluded in some underground SHIELD bunker, working with the best of earth’s scientists on weapons to fight the upcoming war.  Yes, he’d understood the terms of Loki’s parole, but he’d assumed that the requirement that guaranteed Loki had to be always in Steve’s or Fury’s presence, unless given specific and limited permission to be elsewhere, meant that Fury would be taking point on making sure the alien toed the line. 

And yes, Loki spent significant chunks of time in the World Security Council’s undisclosed locations.  But in between, he was confined to Stark’s tower.  When he wasn’t helping Tony in his work he spent most of his time in the communal areas, making snarky comments and indulging in random practical jokes, such as when a TV comedy show starring all of them in embarrassing costumes and situations appeared on every television screen in the communal areas in Stark Tower.  Fortunately, Loki hadn’t broadcast those shows to the greater world.  Then there was the time when he gave various appliances – some of which Steve had yet to master – entirely different functions, such as when the microwave, in addition to cooking food, transformed it into strangely shaped animal figurines.  Still edible, but disturbing to look at, particularly when it was Chinese leftovers all mushed together.

Steve stepped closer, but Loki didn’t turn his attention from the television.  He was dressed casually in black pants and a green shirt made of some kind of shiny silky clingy material.  Inhumanly pale long-fingered hands were laced together over his abdomen.  The channels on the huge screen were switching themselves with great rapidity without benefit of remote control, pausing occasionally to focus on vapid-looking people selling various wares, multiple incidents of explosions and shootings, impassioned people in courtrooms or hospitals, with the occasional glimpses of lions and tigers and bears.  Loki was taking this all in with a look of utter boredom and disdain on his finely sculpted face. 

Steve settled down in a nearby armchair and didn’t bother to look at the television.  Stark liked to “channel switch” too; an action Steve found incredibly irritating and distracting.  He focused his gaze on Loki instead.  He was here on a mission.  He had a plan; he’d worked out exactly what he intended to say. 

The Asgardian’s – or was it the Jotunn’s? – smile widened barely perceptibly.  Steve repressed a sigh. 

Loki drawled without once glancing in his direction, “Do you enjoy staring at me so much you plan to do it all day?”

Steve huffed a tiny noise, and was instantly irritated by the smirk that touched Loki’s lips and disappeared.  The television paused on some kind of talk show.  A darkhaired man was interviewing a couch-ful of celebrities, none of whom Steve recognized, who were apparently promoting a new movie as there was now a clip of some gigantic lizard pulverizing Manhattan while the brunette actress seated to the male lead’s right uttered an ear-piercing scream on screen.  Steve was surprised these kinds of movies were so popular – didn’t people get enough of this sort of thing in real life?  There’d been that attack of Doombots just last Wednesday.  He had a sudden urge to watch something frothy and musical.  Where were the Fred Astaires and Ginger Rogers of this era?  Sure, there were a lot of dancers out there, but the styles and sounds were alienating and he couldn’t watch for long.

Loki waited several seconds longer without looking at him, then twitched a finger and the TV went black.

Steve put aside his uncomfortable feeling about watching Loki watch a fictional account of a monster doing precisely what Loki had attempted when he’d first visited earth, and decided not to comment; his imagination had Stark filling in that dialogue all too clearly.  Any commentary he might add wouldn’t help him achieve today’s goal.  Instead, he found himself saying, “Can’t you find anything you want to watch?”

“Your puerile attempts at entertainment fail to amuse on even the lowest level.  But, by all means,”  Loki turned his head and looked over his shoulder with a bright smile, then gestured at the remote control reposing on the coffee table, “Indulge.”

Steve had recently worked out how to call up movies on demand, and for a moment he considered finding one of his favorites from the 1930s.  Then common sense took over – Loki would doubtless spend his time making mocking comments, like he always did, and he’d rather enjoy his favorite movies without that sort of distraction.  “No thank you.  For all that it’s great to have a movie screen in your living room, there isn’t a whole lot worth watching these days,” Steve admitted readily.  Loki huffed a genuine laugh and sat up. 

He regarded Steve curiously.  “So you do not enjoy your television.”

“It’s not mine,” Steve started, then stopped at Loki’s discerning look.

“No, I expect not.  Your human societies evolve so rapidly.  I expect this would not be to your taste.” 

Despite himself, Steve felt a small pang at the gently barbed remark, like the tiniest cut, immediately noticed but not truly felt until later.  “A lot of it isn’t,” he admitted readily.  “But there’s so much variety that I can find a lot of good things to watch.”

Loki leaned slightly forward, hands on knees, and fixed him with a bright-eyed gaze.  “You appear to be here on a mission.”

Steve frequently felt he was too transparent.   “I’d like you to join us every so often for meals.   We’re having Chinese food tonight and we occasionally watch movies.”

“How dull.”  Loki waved at the TV.  “I can do that here.”  A smile curled his lips.  “Would you like me to take charge of the leftovers?”  Steve repressed a shudder and Loki tilted his head.  “Much as I would like to join all of you in your no-doubt scintillating evening, I must offer my apologies.  I already have plans.”

“You know, you don’t need to eat your meals in your rooms all the time.  It’d be nice if you joined us for dinner every once in awhile.”

“That does sound dreary.  I enjoy not being forced to suffer through Thor’s table manners.  Or perhaps you’re implying my brother is still away?”  He offered Steve an effortlessly artless smile. 

“Thor’s still in New Mexico.  So if that’s your reason for refusing – ”

“As I mentioned, I do have other plans.  I will not be staying in my suite, however.  I will be having dinner elsewhere.”

Steve gave him a hard look and determined to quiz JARVIS at the first opportunity as to whether Loki had found a loophole in the bespelled requirements of his parole:  he was confined to certain designated areas in Stark Tower or whatever locale Fury took him to on their top secret jaunts, and, on the occasions he was outside, he had to be either be in Steve’s or Fury’s presence. “You know you’re not supposed to leave the Tower without me or Fury accompanying you.” 

Loki waved a careless gesture.  “I do not plan to leave the Tower.”

“So you plan to eat right here?”  Loki gave him a non-committal smile, and Steve decided to abandon the topic and bring up the next step of his plan.  “All right.  Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow.  I’d like you to join me – I had some ideas for things we could do.”

Loki made an amused sound.  “Another one of your little projects?  I thought I was to have a holiday from my construction work.  A ‘day off’, it’s called, is it not?”

“Yes, it is a day off.  Unless an emergency occurs.”

Loki smiled.  “Of course.  Your realm seems to have attracted a great deal of interest from other parties since you started playing with Odin’s toys.”

Tony, Steve knew, would have been all over that, and he knew exactly how Fury and Coulson would have responded to casual discussion about whatever it was they were all working on.  But he could see by the gleam in Loki’s eyes the intended point of that comment was to distract him from his goal, so he persevered.  “You’re doing great work on the Gianelli tower.  It’s hard to believe the repairs are almost complete.”  Loki smiled with pleasure at the praise, but his eyes narrowed an instant later.  He had the look of one anticipating poison behind kind words.  “I mean it.  Seeing how quickly you’re getting everything rebuilt – I would never have believed such a thing possible.”

Loki made a dismissive gesture.  “Many things seem impossible to your Midgardian way of thinking,” Loki said patronizingly.

“We’re learning quickly,” Steve replied.  “But tomorrow is still free.  I was thinking you might like to see more of the city from the ground level.  Sunday’s a perfect day for that.  There are outdoor concerts and plays, art exhibits.  A lot going on.  We could go for a walk.  See a game or go to a museum.  Have a good meal.”

Loki’s expression had changed to polite doubt that any of those activities could possibly interest him.  “And what else?” Loki gave him a ‘waiting for the punchline’ patient look. 

“I thought you might like to get out of the Tower with nothing specific planned.”

“An excursion.  Out among the peasants.”  Loki grinned at the sour look on Steve’s face.

“Mr. Loki?”  Steve resisted the impulse to glance toward the ceiling, which he had done so often in the early days every time he’d heard JARVIS speak. 

“Yes?” Loki said, managing to pack a ton of arrogance and aristocracy into one syllable.

“The dinner you ordered has arrived.”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” he said, in the ‘speaking to servants’ tone Steve had once heard from a rich woman outside a department store giving instructions to her chauffeur about when to return.  Loki got up.

“So you ordered takeout?” Steve asked. ~~~~

But he was speaking to empty air.  Loki had vanished, with just the hint of a chuckle fading away behind him.

Steve unclenched his fists.  His attempts to get Loki to play nice with others had so far borne no fruit.  “JARVIS, where did Loki go?”

“Mr. Loki is currently in the Stark Industries formal dining room.”  Did he imagine it, or did JARVIS sound just a little bit irritated?

Steve hadn’t heard of that dining room before, but of course a rich guy like Tony would need one of those.  Probably several of those.  He wasn’t surprised he’d never been there before because Tony, without the motivation of Pepper’s badgering, avoided like the plague any of the portions of his Tower set aside for the running of his business.  “And where is that?” 

 

A minute later Steve was in the nearest elevator and heading sixty-three floors down, considering whether Loki had found a loophole.  A formal dining room was still a communal space, and, yes, technically within Loki’s limits.  Even if it was nowhere near the other parts of the tower Loki had access to. 

He noticed the vaguest hint of pressure at his temples, like the first indication that a bad headache was on its way.  He didn’t get those anymore.  Not since before the serum.  But if he did, he was sure Loki would be the cause of most of them, the occasional slime creature or attack of Doombots aside.  It was moments like these, having just seen the cause of so much death and destruction lying on Tony’s sofa like he owned the place, that made Steve feel, more than usual, that he‘d woken up in a world he just didn’t understand.

Particularly when he’d heard the reasons behind the death and destruction and realized this new world he had awakened into had expanded greatly beyond their planet, and the danger approaching from somewhere far out in space, which had first laid its hands on Loki, was even now approaching to do far worse to their world.

This moment – and others like it – were the end result of complicated negotiations between Asgard and the World Security Council.  Negotiations which had started with Thor’s dramatic arrival at Avenger’s Tower six months after the Battle of New York, now nearly a year ago.

Thor, wearing his armor, had appeared without warning on the rooftop of Stark’s tower.  Only he, Tony, and Bruce had been present that night, Natasha and Clint being off on some secret mission.  Thor had been intense and serious, and the reasons became quickly clear.  He’d begun by explaining that his father had regained enough magical strength to send him here alone.  Tony had immediately broken in to quiz him on specifics, but Thor had managed the seemingly impossible: he’d gotten Tony to shut up.  He’d requested they use their recording devices to share his news with Midgard’s King.  Thor had been uncertain as to who that personage might be, so left the details up to Nick Fury.  Tony hadn’t bothered to put in a call to Fury, but he’d shown up a short time later anyway, accompanied by a miraculously resurrected Coulson.  Some time had to be wasted in explaining to all of them just exactly how the Son of Coul had survived Loki’s assault.  Thor had been delighted and had proposed a feast to celebrate, but he had quickly returned to his mission and told them about Loki’s fate and Asgard’s plans.

He described in raw and compelling detail the unimaginably lethal space alien who had pulled Loki from the depths of space and turned him into his own weapon, and horrifyingly worse, that warlord’s obsession with death, with genocide, with the destruction of all life everywhere. 

Thor had ignored Tony’s numerous attempts to interrupt and explained that, upon their initial return to Asgard, Loki had been entrusted to their healers.  He had now, Thor assured them, been healed of his madness, and with various magical safeguards in place to ensure his behavior, had been helping with the repair of the Bifrost. 

Steve remembered how stunned he’d been when Thor told them that his father had determined that Loki would return to earth on a type of parole; that the work on the Bifrost had now reached the point where he felt Loki’s abilities could best be used on Midgard.  He proposed to send Loki to aid in Jane Foster’s work and that of any other Midgardian sorcerer who possessed sufficient skill to complete an Einstein-Rosen bridge.  The completion of this bridge and its programming to the location of the Bifrost would create a resonance which would stimulate the growth of the Bifrost and, if all went well, create a stable connection between their realms.  At that point, Asgard could send armies to earth at will.

In addition, once that work was complete, Loki could aid them with their defenses by helping them design specific weaponry to prepare for a war with the warlord who had sent Loki to earth in the first place.   Asgard, also, was working on strengthening its own defenses with the use of the Tesseract and other such relics.  Lastly, whenever he wasn’t working on either of those goals, Loki had also been commanded to make reparations to Midgard (Thor called it “weregeld”, but it sounded like reparations to Steve). 

Tony had used a lot more words, many of them profane, to say the same thing he had:  how could they possibly trust Loki to do any of that?   Thor had explained that, though their healers felt he was ready, they had decided to make certain of his loyalty by requiring him to swear a magically-coerced vow to do no harm to anyone overtly or covertly.  There was a long list of other requirements as well, on making reparations and following orders.  Last of all, Thor had made it very clear that in turn Midgard was to vow to keep Loki safe from all harm or imprisonment. 

Tony had quizzed Thor about possible loopholes but Thor had been blithely confident that in no possible way would Loki be able to cause any trouble on Midgard.   Tony and Steve had both been less certain of Odin’s abilities to keep anyone like Loki contained, but Thor hadn’t stayed for any more questions, and had left as abruptly as he had arrived. 

Thor had returned a few weeks later, again with no advance notice.  This time he had Loki in tow, along with some additional Asgardians, mostly older men in fancy robes, all deferential to Thor.  The older ones in robes had been introduced as counselors and diplomats.   The younger ones, all dressed in armor even more outlandish than Thor’s, were called Einherjar, a term Loki had helpfully translated as “security”. 

Loki and Tony had immediately begun insulting each other.  Minutes later the SHIELD agents Tony had grudgingly allowed to take up residence on another floor of his tower had shown up, a SHIELD helicopter had landed on the roof, and Thor, Loki, and all the Asgardians had been whisked away.  Tony had amused himself tracking them down to some super secret sanctuary in the Alps, but then had gotten busy with another one of his projects. 

The Asgardians had returned several days later.  Thor’s muddled explanation as to what had happened while they were gone had been interrupted so many times by Loki giving him a condescending smile and saying in a patronizing tone, “What was their quaint term?  ‘Ultra Top Secret’?” It had taken Tony a full 15 minutes to find out everything he wanted to know. 

Steve had been highly skeptical at first, and still was not totally convinced that Loki himself had been under the influence of another being’s mind, certain that Loki could never truly make reparations for all the deaths he had caused.  But so far Loki had done everything he had been required to do.  The Einstein–Rosen bridge had been completed a few weeks ago and Loki had explained it was anticipated that in a mere few months the Bifrost would be fully regenerated and the gateway would be opened.   The next phase of the project had started immediately, and Loki had divided his time between Fury’s undisclosed locations for weapons development, and Stark Tower.

And, while in New York, he had begun work on making on-the-ground reparations by helping with the work to reconstruct the damaged portions of Manhattan, already well underway before his arrival.

Loki had made a start with providing endless quantities of top notch building materials literally out of nowhere, and the building equipment to go with it, all at first glance appearing to be identical to ordinary construction equipment, but on use turned out to be better, faster, and more efficient.

Reconstructing what he had destroyed was only the beginning.  Though there were Wall Street bigwigs tearing their hair out over a sudden influx of money to every charity in the city, and a concurrent scandal over the sudden drop in the price of gold because of the sudden availability of gold from several newly discovered sources in every part of the globe due to some new technology, and despite politicians and the IRS talking about investigations into money laundering and other, darker financial scandals, and reporters salivating over the prospect of big stories, and an army of lawyers creating chaos of their own, somehow the money and services got to those who needed it.

Steve was fine with that.

And so far Loki had been doing a good job repairing the damage and destruction he and his army had caused.  Any concerns they had about how to pull off having the source of all this destruction publicly visible help fix it had vanished early on.  All-father Odin had worked some magic, with Loki’s assistance, and, as Loki put it, “cast a spell”, and as Tony put it, “hacked into”, every facial recognition program on the planet to make cameras blind to Loki’s presence, seeing someone entirely different instead.  To top it off, every photo of Loki online or off, from the sharp clear images from Stuttgart, to blurred cell phone distance shots of someone dressed in a melodramatic green and gold costume wearing some ridiculous horned helmet at the top of Stark’s tower, showed someone who maybe looked a lot like Loki, but when focused on showed someone else entirely. 

The most disturbing part was, no one seemed to notice, other than the other Avengers and certain SHIELD agents such as Fury and Coulson.  Unsurprisingly, Nick Fury seemed perfectly comfortable with the deception and secrecy.  That didn’t apply to its source, however.  When he’d first visited Stark Tower while Loki was in residence the veins on his head had throbbed so visibly that Steve worried he might have a stroke.  But Fury had managed, with obvious difficulty, to restrain himself from physically attacking the source of his rage.  Despite that source greeting him with a predatory smirk.

The elevator arrived on the 28th floor, and Steve stepped out into a tastefully appointed antechamber.  Pepper’s doing, no doubt, through a choice of some business designer.  The door to the executive dining room didn’t want to open for him at first, but he used an override Tony had given him and walked right in like he was taking command of a unit ready to raid a HYDRA stronghold.

The long elegant room screamed money in its every detail.  Loki was seated at the end of a long table made of some rich warm-toned wood, wine goblet in hand, several different wine bottles lined up on a small table to the side.  At least fifteen dishes were arrayed in front of him.  He was currently sampling something that looked like Steve’s mother’s green Jell-O salad – that is, if she’d been able to make Jell-O in an egg shape and put something that looked like weeds inside it.

Loki looked up at him, unsurprised, and smiled the smile of a perfect host.  He gestured to the seat beside him, and Steve walked to it along the length of a long table, which would have easily accommodated 20 people. 

Steve stopped, rested his hands on the back of the chair, and stared at one small plate after another.   “What on earth is that?” he asked dubiously.  None of the dishes contained anything he’d define as food.  Loki grinned and moved on to a dish composed of something about the size of a potato chip, only flat and filigreed, which was connected to an amorphous yellow blob by a fancy toothpick.  A square cube of fried something completed the combination.   Loki lifted a fork to his mouth and took a delicate bite, half closing his eyes in pleasure. “Is that supposed to be food?”

Loki swallowed a second bite and gave him a beatific smile.  “Care to join me, Captain?”

Steve sat down in the indicated chair.  Loki politely passed a dish over and lifted his hand invitingly.  Steve studied something which looked like a mound of bubble bath foam with a few nut-shaped things stuck randomly in place, a heap of what looked like half a crumbled sugar cookie, an orange flower and something that looked like parsley.

“Is it safe for humans to eat Asgardian food?”

Loki displayed his teeth.  “Asgardian cuisine, on the whole, is on the basic side.  If you want good cuisine, go to Alfheim.  This is Midgardian food.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Steve said suspiciously, using a chopstick to poke at something which looked like a collection of translucent pale orange marbles presented in a fancy red spoon.  “Where did you get it?”

Loki gave him condescending smile.  “I choose to patronize only those establishments which serve nobility.  Not peasants.”  He looked entirely too pleased with himself at the expression Steve knew had crossed his face.

“What is this?”  Steve pointed out something which looked like an empty potato shell, a congealed orange block of something, with what looked like it might have been bacon at some point stuck to the side.

“It’s called ‘Eggs Benedict’.”  Loki gently moved it to Steve’s side of the table.  Steve contemplated it.  It didn’t resemble whatsoever any eggs he had ever seen.  Steve picked up a fork.  Recalling the raw liver he had to eat as a treatment for anemia, he figured it couldn’t be any worse than that.   He gamely took a bite. 

It wasn’t bad.

It wasn’t good either, but he kept eating, thinking it was ridiculous to take something this trivial as a challenge.  But nothing was ever simple with Loki.

The food went down easily and he relaxed slightly, realizing his body had automatically tensed in anticipation of his stomach rejecting the food, remembering how he had had to be so very careful of what he ate before the serum because of his stomach problems.  And what a revelation that had been, on how almost all the ailments he’d suffered before the experiment could now be cured quickly and easily!  For all the faults he found in his new time, medicine was not one of them.

Loki watched, expressionless, then took a bite of something pale pink with a green wrapping.  He smiled with pleasure at the taste.

“You sure don’t like the same things your brother does,” Steve commented casually. 

Loki pasted a bemused expression on his face.  “My brother, the connoisseur.”  He took a second bite of whatever it was he was eating.

Steve decided he might as well continue his train of thought. “Steaks, potatoes, burgers, that sort of thing.”

“You forgot to mention the delectable ‘pop tart’,” Loki observed dryly.

“Those too.”

“Asgardian cuisine runs heavily to such things. Roasts, root vegetables.  Various apple dishes.   Meat in bread, such as your burgers, is something he frequently eats at ho—On Asgard.”

“I guess he’s not into trying anything new,” Steve said, making a mental note of what Loki had almost said.  He took a bite of something vinegary Loki had just offered him.  If this was a test, he planned to pass it.  “Have you thought about joining me tomorrow?”

“Is this one of your ‘honorable orders’?”  Bitterness danced below the surface of Loki’s casual tone.

That had been the Asgardian term for orders that Loki was compelled by the spellwork to follow to the letter.  It had felt a bit too much like slavery to Steve, but no one else had objected, and Barton, for one, had wholeheartedly approved.  “No.  It’s not.  It’s like I said earlier.  I just thought you might enjoy getting out of the tower for once, do something different.”  Loki still looked as if he were looking for a ‘catch’.”   

“That’s all,” Steve said. “Just a day out.”

Loki gave a short, amused laugh, and his expression lost its hard edge.  “You’re incapable of guile.  I accept your offer.”

Steve found a big smile had crossed his face.  Loki passed him something sweet, and offered a glass of wine, both of which he was surprised to find he enjoyed.  He lifted his glass, considering making a toast like he’d seen Pepper do, when the door swung open, and Stark headed in their direction with the inexorable force of a hurricane.  He was glaring so hard Steve was reminded of cartoon characters with steam coming out of their ears. 

Stark stopped, surveyed the table, and, seemingly despite himself, smirked.  “Chef Montañés must have had a coronary when you asked him for delivery.”

“Chef who?” Steve asked.

Tony ignored him, being occupied with a staredown with Loki, and for some reason brandishing a StarkPhone as if it were a personal enemy.  “You might think you can dick around with my stuff with impunity since it’s not technically against the rules but I figure if you can find a loophole I can find a bigger one.”

“Oooh, a challenge!”  Loki straightened up from a casual pose, eyes bright.

JARVIS broke in, “The proprietor of EBBA, a molecular gastronomy restaurant.”

Steve automatically looked at the ceiling.  “A what?”  Sometimes when Steve got answers he felt he knew less than he had to start with.

“Molecular gastronomy is a subdiscipline of food science that seeks to investigate the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur in cooking…”  JARVIS continued his technical description of exactly what molecular gastronomy was, but Steve had stopped paying attention.  His focus was entirely on Stark and Loki.  Stark, uncharacteristically, had fallen silent.  But that was only because he was busy eating. He had picked up the nearest dish, taken a bite, then set it down.  Steve watched bemused, as Stark proceeded to do the same with the next one.  And the one after that.  Stark ran his finger through the bath-foam dish, brought it up to his mouth, licked it, and, without removing his index finger from his mouth, gave Loki a filthy stare which made Steve very uncomfortable.   He made his way through all the dishes, varying his routine between taking sample bites or digging his fingers into the dishes Loki had already sampled, while making approving moans or ick sounds.  He set the last plate down and stared challengingly at Loki.  Loki widened his eyes and brightened his smile in return.

 “Tony,” Steve started hesitantly.  “Do you even know what you’re eating?”

“Hey, I figure since Snape here ordered a meal from the most expensive restaurant in NY – several meals, actually – on my dime I really ought to get the chance to taste what I paid for.  And not even a word of thanks.”  He gave Loki another glare. 

“Thank you,” Loki oozed sincerity, “for having a name which convinced them to deliver my dinner.”

“Which they never do.  There’s a waiting list months long just to get in the place.”

“Unless your name is Tony Stark,” Loki observed and Tony grinned.

“True.”  Tony began studying the wine bottles.  He picked up one which was nearly empty.  “Oh, you **_would_.”**   Steve could see the label, _Chateau Lafitte_.  “Just count yourself lucky you didn’t steal any of the better stuff from my cellar,” he concluded with a fierce warning glare.

“What did this dinner cost, exactly?” Steve asked.  And forgot what he was saying when Loki picked up a piece of half-eaten food Tony had just put down, popped it in his mouth, and made a pleased sound.

Tony gaped. “Really?  You eat food other people have already bitten into?” 

Loki was doing the same to one of the dishes Tony had dragged his fingers through.  He looked up with false innocence.  “I am accustomed to Thor’s table manners.  I assure you, yours are no worse.”

Stark huffed and dropped his StarkPhone by Loki’s plate.  “JARVIS, call me.”  An instant later, the phone on the table began playing what, to Steve, sounded like a pleasant love song about a girl named Mandy.  He could understand the words – which was entirely the opposite of Stark’s usual taste for loud and incoherent music.  “Barry Manilow?” Stark said.  “Really?”

Loki tilted his head back.  “I was assured that this song met your very high standards.”

Tony choked.  “By who?  My high standards in what?  Vegas schmaltz?  Now.  I want to be sure you know, I can fix this myself.  But I want you to do it, and tell me how you did it.  In detail.”

Loki smiled brightly.  “I’ve taken up an interest in your science.”  At Tony’s threatening expression, Loki gave a tiny put-upon sigh and waved a gesture at the phone.

“JARVIS, call me again,” Stark ordered.

The usual cacophony of Tony’s preferred music filled the room.  Stark gave Loki a satisfied smile.  “Now you’ve finished your dinner – “ this, despite the fact that half the plates still had food on them – “You’re coming with me upstairs and you’ll show me how you did this.  Step by step.  Answering all my questions.  Truthfully.  And accurately.”

“I’ll be very happy to – “ Steve shot him a suspicious look.  “ – however, you won’t be able to duplicate it.”

“Remember the terms of the contract.”  Tony struck a showman’s pose.  “You must obey any ‘honorable order’ by assisting us in any way to defend our realm, yadda yadda yadda.  This is an ‘honorable order’.” 

The scowl that crossed Loki’s face vanished quickly, replaced with one of condescension.  “I will follow your orders to the letter,” he cooed. “You still won’t be able to duplicate it.”

“Just watch me.  It’s time for our magic lesson, Gandalf’s Evil Twin.  Show me how you did this, explain the mechanics, and I’ll figure out the rest,” Tony said. 

Loki got to his feet, followed Tony to the door, and murmured, “Presumptuous mortal.”  Tony barked a laugh, then paused for half a second and said to Steve over his shoulder, “To answer your question:  with the wine, about $20,000.”

“What question?”  Steve felt at a total loss.

“How much Loki’s dinner cost.  Good thing for him he didn’t steal the _really_ expensive wine,” Tony said, the door shutting behind him as Steve sputtered in shock.  He looked at the remains of the dinner left on the table, and the half-full bottles of wine.

Very costly wine.

Typical Loki.  Every single time he got back from his stays at Fury’s undisclosed locations, they could expect a heightened level of annoying practical jokes.  Loki always appeared tightly wound after those times away – his posture stiff, with the occasional dark expression crossing his face, instantly replaced with blankness or sarcasm.  Then, after pulling a prank or two, he seemed to relax.

Most recently, he had hacked into some kind of real life video game which had loads of people wandering all over the place, looking to ‘catch’ creatures they could only see on their phones.  Except Loki had rigged it so that at random times these creatures had manifested as illusions that everyone could see.  Even worse, sometimes he caused actual treasure in the form of gold and jewels to appear in locations in city parks, creating general chaos.  Loki had gotten a good laugh out of that one.

The second time Loki had pulled a prank convinced Steve that this was a pattern, not a coincidence.  He’d found Loki alone later that day and had asked him outright, “Is Fury – or anyone else - mistreating you?”

Loki had stared at him, looking so plainly astonished that Steve thought that had to be the first honest expression he’d seen on his face.  Then Loki said sarcastically, “Why, soldier, you make me think for an instant you care about my fate.”

Steve pinned him with a hard stare.  “Has he found some way to circumvent the rule that you can’t be harmed?”

Loki’s expression had turned brittle.  “The only mistreatment I am subject to is Fury’s charming personality.” 

But his eyes seemed to indicate otherwise, and Steve had persisted.  “You can tell me.  I won’t put up with anyone being abused.”

Loki’s eyes darkened.  “Fury can no more break the terms of the spell than I can.  He was no more successful than Barton was in his attempt to harm me.”  He smirked at that memory, and Steve managed not to smile himself.  Barton hadn’t been back in the tower since Loki’s return.  Even though he had been fully briefed that Loki was to be welcomed as a guest and warned of the consequences, upon seeing Loki he’d fired three arrows in quick succession at point blank range before anyone could make a move to stop him.  The arrows had immediately turned into butterflies and fluttered around Barton’s head in a distracting dance.  Loki’s delighted laugh had enraged the archer to such an extent that he’d physically attacked him only to be thrown back by some kind of invisible force shield.  Barton, cursing, had stormed out of the Tower and hadn’t been back since, though he still joined the team on official business.

Steve still wasn't convinced there was nothing going on – Loki, after all, had implied Fury had _tried_ to harm him – but Loki had put a stop to their conversation by stalking out of the room.

Thor had been asked, on one of his visits, if he could put a stop to this behavior.  Thor had just grinned and explained, “Loki has always been given to such jests when he found events too tedious or slow for his liking.  Or,” his expression had darkened, “when he took offense at another’s words or actions.  Many a man has rued a careless comment to my brother.”

In other words, Loki was blowing off steam.  Steve thought about the preferred ways soldiers blew off steam and figured as long as the pranks Loki pulled remained relatively harmless he’d overlook it.  He had a sneaking suspicion no one could do anything about it anyway. 

Steve sighed and shook his head.  He collected all the bottles which still contained some wine and headed to the elevator.  Natasha preferred vodka, but she might appreciate a good - or at least extremely expensive - wine.


	2. Art Appreciation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve leaned forward slightly. “I believe you deserve a second chance. Thor got a second chance. Why not you?” He hurried on as Loki’s expression turned even flintier.... "I’ve seen the work you’ve done here. I’ve seen the expression on your face when you didn’t think anyone was looking.” Loki’s lips tightened and his eyes went shuttered and blank. Steve went on resolutely, “I know everyone thinks I see the world in black and white terms. But I believe in looking at each person as an individual, in seeing what lies beneath the surface.”  
> “And what lies beneath my surface?”  
> 

Steve had halfway expected Loki to change his mind and not go on their excursion the following day, but here they were, wandering around Fifth Avenue, after having breakfast at Steve’s favorite corner restaurant.  Steve had had his usual Thor-sized portion – and that was another reason he was glad the blond Viking was occasionally around; having to eat as much as he did always made him self-conscious, and having someone else around who ate as much, or more, helped out.  One thing though, restaurant owners were always glad to see him. 

Emma, the waitress, had a plate of four eggs, a tower of pancakes, another of French toast, and half a pound of bacon ready for him by the time he sat down.  Loki had seemed less than enthusiastic about his smaller version of the meal, and chose to spend his time telling embarrassing stories about someone named Volstagg who sounded like he was the Norse god of gluttony. 

Steve had suggested Fifth Avenue because he figured it was the closest he could come to the sort of luxury Loki was obviously used to.  Which is how they found themselves inside Tiffany’s, with Loki making elaborately worded comments about how their offerings were utterly inadequate to his tastes in fine jewelry.  He was dressed in what Steve recognized had to be the best quality suit available, something rich fellows like Tony wore, remembering what Tony had looked like the few times Pepper coerced him into putting on a suit. 

The sales clerks were politeness itself, but Steve was certain they’d all heaved a sigh of relief when Steve and Loki left.  “I suppose all the jewelry in Asgard is much more sophisticated than anything else we have to offer here,” he commented, hearing the note of sarcasm in his own voice.

Loki snickered.  “Asgard likes everything big and gold and obvious.  No, if you want true finery in jewelry, Alfheim has the best.  They do good work on Nidavellir as well, though rather somewhat less sophisticated.”

Loki was already heading further along the street, looking at high fashion clothing stores and all kinds of expensive shops. “I must say you Midgardians have improved your lot.” 

Such a snob.  Steve tried to see their surroundings through Loki’s eyes, but couldn’t imagine how alien royalty would view his world, even this high-quality area.  He certainly couldn’t judge Loki by Thor’s tastes; whenever he chose to wear human clothing it was jeans and a hoodie.  “This must all seem very strange to you.”

Loki offered Steve a perceptive look.  “No more than you, I imagine.” 

When Steve didn’t bite at the bait Loki started walking ahead of him again.  They continued past more fancy stores and restaurants, then ran into several paparazzi a block or two apart.  It was odd, being known, sometimes being plagued for autographs or interviews, constantly being photographed and harangued by people shouting questions, or else being shown respect and deference that still seemed very strange. 

Steve offered them polite smiles, trying to imagine what would be on the internet the next minute, and what Loki would look like.  The illusion Loki was wearing, sometimes visible out of the corner of Steve’s eye, showed an elegant man with collar length dark red hair, with a face only one shade different from Loki’s actual appearance.  Tony had once asked Loki why his illusions were as equally convincing to cameras as they were to the human eye.  He and Bruce had listened with interest, while Steve had tuned out after the first second, not recognizing a single word they’d spoken.

While stopping for coffee, sitting at an outdoor table, Steve commented, “I still don’t understand why sometimes I can see a bit of your disguise, but most of the time I see you as you are.” 

Loki had been looking around at the various people walking by:  a woman dressed mostly in pink who was walking a large brown mutt; men and women of various ethnicities in business suits; tourists dressed in summer clothing pointing their phones at everything; a man so covered with tattoos there was barely an inch of unmarked skin visible.

Loki took a sip of coffee and fixed his brilliant green eyes on Steve’s face.  “You heard the explanation – that those of you who truly know me can truly see me - but I doubt I can explain it to you in terms you understand.”

“Does it seem strange for you, to have people see you looking like someone else?” 

Aside from a sharpening of his gaze, Loki did not betray the slightest hint he heard the meaning beneath Steve’s question.  “I often went among the peasants in disguise.”  Steve winced at the arrogance in Loki’s voice, and felt irritated at the smug look that flashed across Loki’s face.

But he was curious.  “Why?”

Loki’s gaze took on a faraway quality.  “I wanted to see how the people lived when thinking themselves unobserved.”  His tone was factual, but there was the trace of some other note beneath it, something that Steve chose to interpret as wistfulness.  There was a kinship there; the shared feeling of being under constant watch at all times.  Just a second ago he’d seen another photographer take his picture.

“Do you spend much time outside, in Asgard?”

Loki’s eyes sparkled.  “No, I spent all of my time in my evil lair.  It much resembles Doom’s castle.”  He laughed at Steve’s expression.  “Now there is a pathetic mortal for you; he chooses to live in a dark and dank castle instead of the luxurious surroundings of the princes of your realm, such as Stark.  I’ve seen enough of your movies to know that his castle is – I believe your word for it is ‘cliché’.  And then there’s that ridiculous armor of his.”

“I’ve heard that he wears the mask because it covers up some injury.”  That wasn’t the way he had intended to pursue this subject.

Loki’s face went still and he tapped a couple of fingers on the table, then withdrew his hand, forming a fist, then relaxing his hand a second later.  “Can that truly be his real name?” he went on. “Perhaps one day I’ll visit him and ask.”  At Steve’s alarmed look, he added, “But only if you Avengers want me to. I think I would quite enjoy meeting him in battle.  Presumptuous fool, calling himself a sorcerer.  Midgard doesn’t know the meaning of the word.  Do you think,” he added, eyes bright, an overly eager look on his face, “I will be given that chance?  I’m very bored.”

“There’s a lot more work to be done right here, as you know, and as long as he remains in his own country we can’t touch him.”

“Hmmm,” Loki paused to muse.  “Would Romanoff and Barton agree?  Would Fury?”

Steve knew they wouldn’t.  “I leave the decision-making up to the generals.”

“Because you’ve always been so good at always following orders.”  Loki sounded completely sincere, but his eyes were knowing.

“My career is there for anyone to read.  I always do what I believe to be right.”

“And is it right?  Working with me?”

Steve heard the challenge in Loki’s voice but chose to ignore it. “Yes.  It is,” he said firmly.

“Why?”  Loki’s eyes were hard.

Steve leaned forward slightly.  “I believe you deserve a second chance.  Thor got a second chance.  Why not you?”  He hurried on as Loki’s expression turned even flintier.  “When Thor first told us you were coming here – well, I was fine with ‘lock him up and throw away the key’.  But I’ve seen the work you’ve done here.  I’ve seen the expression on your face when you didn’t think anyone was looking.”  Loki’s lips tightened and his eyes went shuttered and blank.  Steve went on resolutely, “I know everyone thinks I see the world in black and white terms.  But I believe in looking at each person as an individual, in seeing what lies beneath the surface.”

“And what lies beneath my surface?”

“You tell me.”

Loki was silent and after the moment lengthened Steve spoke again, gesturing to their surroundings.  “When you came to earth – if it had been your choice - would you have wanted to live here?”

“I had not realized you were given to jests.”  Loki played with the spoon that had been in his coffee.  “I had no interest in your realm.”

“Do you now?”

His lips compressed.  “Since it is my prison I perforce must… acclimate.  But what about you?  If I fulfill all the conditions of my ‘parole’, I will be free to go.  But what about you?”

“I’m free to go anywhere I like.”

“Except where you would most like to go.”  Loki’s voice had a touch of cruelty.  “This all,” he gestured expansively, “must be so very different to you than the world you were born into.”

“It is.  But I’ve adapted.”  Steve kept his voice firm.  What he wanted didn’t matter.  He couldn’t have it, but he was used to making do.  And he’d been making do with this world ever since he’d woken into it.

“Have you?” Loki said with false concern.

“I have,” Steve said firmly.

Loki’s lips stretched into a wider smile and he made a skeptical sound.   “I would see more of your city before the day is done.”  He stood suddenly and Steve followed.

This time Steve led him along the less-trendy part of Bleecker Street, thinking that it would be good to show him contrasting neighborhoods.  Loki did seem interested, looking into store windows and commenting on the goods and the passersby.  He towered over most people on the street, but very few even gave him a second glance, so effective was the “don’t look at me” disguise spell surrounding him.  He paused in front of another store window, this one filled with clocks and timekeeping devices of all kinds and advertising repair of the same.  He then found a used bookstore and they went inside. 

As soon as they entered a thin young man approached to ask if they needed help.  He had a ‘Stark Beard’; something it seemed like every third guy in New York had grown.  When he looked at Steve he stopped in recognition and became that much more alert.  “We’d just like to browse, thank you,” Steve assured him.  After that he, and the other store employees, stayed away in deference to who he was.

Loki spent a great deal of time browsing, while Steve decided to hang out in the military history section and page through volumes, not really paying attention to anything he was looking at.  Another day he’d be riveted, but not today.  Loki couldn’t get too far away from him, by the requirements of the spell, and he’d followed the terms of his parole to the letter, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t plotting another practical joke, like the sparkling footprints that had appeared one day along some New York City streets and up the sides of several skyscrapers.  There’d been a lot of useless speculation about that on TV, and everywhere else.

After several minutes, carrying a book on General Patton he’d decided to buy, Steve wandered back near Loki.  Loki ignored him.  Steve began looking through nearby shelves, but Loki seemed engrossed in some old volume.  Unexpectedly, the memory of the first time Thor had come back six months after the Battle of New York came back into his mind with crystal clarity.

After Fury and Coulson had left, the others had stayed on the top floor living area.  Thor had ignored Stark’s offer of just about every kind of booze there was and had produced a bottle of Asgardian alcohol which he offered to Steve and Bruce, but not to Tony.  Tony immediately demanded some.  Thor reluctantly had poured a tiny amount of the pale liquid into a small glass.  Tony’s eyes had gone wide when he’d taken his first sip, then, suppressing a cough, he took another careful sip.  He’d slowly relaxed back into his chair.

Thor had gulped down his first glass and poured another.  It hadn’t been long before he got to talking about his younger brother.  He had started out philosophically, answering a question Tony had asked about Loki’s magic, in short order demonstrating he had absolutely no idea how Loki did what he did, except that he was “born to it”, and their mother – also, apparently, an accomplished sorceress – had taught him everything he knew.

Then Tony had leaned forward and fixed Thor with an avid stare.  “That giant robot he let loose on Puente Antiguo – I’ve got all of SHIELD’s files on what they’ve learned about it, but I was wondering if I could get the Asgardian schematics.  How about it, Thor?  We could use some of those the next time Doom attacks.  Do you have lots of those things on Asgard?  I somehow didn’t picture Viking space warriors needing giant killer robots, but maybe I’m wrong.  Do you use them in battle?”

Thor’s mouth set.  “We had only the one, created by my father’s magic.  It was used to guard my father’s vault of relics.  One relic in particular.”  He downed the rest of his drink, and refilled the glass, darkness filling his gaze. 

Tony took another sip.  “What relic?”  When Thor didn’t answer right away, he kept right on going, but Steve was not surprised when he began slurring his words.  “Reindeer Games did quite a number on that town with his WMD.  Tried to kill you.  And now you’re telling me he shot the shit out of NYC because this big bad out there in space somewhere was pulling his strings.  But there’s something you’re not saying.  Because he sent that thing to stomp all over in Pu – Pwai – that wide spot on the road in New Mexico before he fell from your Bif-bif – bridge.”  Tony’s eyes were large and liquid, and when he reached for his glass again he missed.  Bruce pulled it out of Tony’s reach.  “Hey, I wasn’t done with that!”

“Yes, you are,” Steve said, and collected the glass from Bruce.

Tony swiveled his head to glare at the two of them, then turned his attention back to Thor.  “So, Pu – Antigua – whatever – proves your brother is evil.  Maybe not Darth Vader evil, maybe not blow up Alderaan evil.  But evil.  And I gotta say… gotta say…” 

So much for Tony thinking he could handle Asgardian hooch.  For the first time ever in Steve’s recollection Tony stopped talking and his eyes slid half-closed.  Steve had only sipped at the powerful liquor and was amazed to find he was also feeling just the slightest trace of lightheadedness.  He didn’t pick up his glass again.

“What is this Alderaan?” Thor asked.

After Bruce described the plot of “Star Wars” Thor’s face creased with lines of grief; any hint of the always-cheerful smiling Norse god had vanished.  

“I have done as much evil as my brother.”

Thor’s words were so shocking, so unbelievable it took Steve a moment to respond. “Whatever you’ve done, it can’t compare to what Loki did.”

But the look of pain on Thor’s face only worsened.  “You know not what I have done.”  His voice was low, harsh.  “You know my father banished me here for my failings.”

Bruce and Steve had nodded, and Tony made an inarticulate grunt.  Thor had gone on to describe his failed coronation and what followed.  “I mocked my father, convinced he was an ancient fool, too cowardly to take us into a just and righteous war.  Yes – I thought in my heart my father was a coward, the lowest accusation of them all.”

“Dr. Selvig said you’d been banished for nearly starting a war,” Steve prompted, remembering what he had heard from Selvig during the scientist’s recent visit, along with Jane Foster, to an exclusive conference Tony had held regarding what had been learned from alien weaponry.

“I did not tell Selvig all.  The consequences still lie heavily upon me.”  Thor paused, his gaze distant and full of pain.  “Much to my shame, I have not yet made my own reparations.   You condemn my brother for his actions, but I slew many that day, all because they were frost giants.”

“Selvig mentioned them, the frost giants,” Bruce put in.

“Selvig asked me about the frost giants, at the tavern he took me to.  I answered all his questions about Asgard.  I knew he did not believe me – not then, not when I was mortal.  But he was still interested in how the tales I told compared to the tales he had heard in his youth.  You mortals told the most curious things about us.  It is my hope Loki never hears the tale of the builder and his horse.  I assure you, no such thing ever happened.”  A slight smile touched Thor’s lips and vanished again.

“What is a frost giant?” Steve asked curiously.

“The enemy,” Thor said heavily.  “Or so I was told all my life.  Asgard and Jotunheim were fighting a great war when I was born.  I was still a young child, Loki younger yet, when our father told us of the Jotnar, the frost giants, monsters who had attacked your realm without provocation, seeking to turn it into a realm of ice much like their own.”

Tony managed to blink his eyes open, hand automatically reaching for a glass that wasn’t there.  “Wait.  We’ve had alien invaders before?  Sounds to me like these Yote-nar are the bad guys.”

“That is the tale we were told – that they were our enemy, and always had been.  When those few invaded our Vault, despite the cautions of my father, I thought them all guilty.  We had been told from childhood terrible tales of the monsters who desired to slay us all.” 

Bruce twitched uncomfortably at that word.  Steve reached to pat his hand, and received a quick glance and a feeble smile of thanks in return.

Tony, oblivious, asked, “What do the monsters look like?”

Thor raised his arms above his head.  “This tall and more.  Like beasts, there is no white in their eyes, which are as red as blood.  They have strange scarred lines all over their skin, which is as blue as the evening sky.”

“So these monsters,” Tony continued, “if they’re ‘like beasts’, how did they manage space travel?”

Thor stared at Tony.  “There are many things I never thought to question, before.  When I was a child, I believed the stories everyone told.  Now I know they once had a great civilization, but since the war their realm lies in ruins.”

“Fuck ‘everyone’.”  Tony shifted in his chair, looking a bit sick. “’Everyone’ is a dick.  If I cared what ‘everyone’ thought I’d never have invented anything.”

“Your people fought a war with them,” Steve put in.  “Does that make all of them the enemy?  Were there none among them, or your own people, who questioned the need for war?”

Thor’s expression filled with shame.  He toyed with his empty glass.  “I never thought to ask if any among them did not favor this course, nor did I consider why all of them should pay for the actions of their King.  We have been at peace for many centuries, but the tales of their depravities live on.  And I –I thought war was noble and honorable.  I believed strong kings went to war, while weak kings were contemptible.”  His voice became lower, more strained, as if every word was an enormous burden he could not put down.  “I thought to show all I would be a strong king.  I went to Jotunheim with murder in my heart.”  Thor bowed his head, his face looking much older.  “Their King offered us a peaceful departure.  Loki counseled me to take this opportunity, to leave with no blood shed.”

“Loki?” Steve said in surprise.

Tears sprang to Thor’s eyes.  “My brother was always wiser than I in these matters, and I derided him for it.  I chose not to follow his counsel.  I responded to a childish taunt by murdering the man who made it.  Then we were battling all around us.  Though outnumbered by many, I used Mjolnir to slay dozens – hundreds.”

Steve visualized it, an icy plain filled with blue giants and lots of guys looking like Thor battling for their lives.  Thor went on speaking, his voice wavering, dredging further depths of pain.  “My friends Fandral and Volstagg were grievously injured.  Yet, I battled on, despite Loki urging we must leave.” 

Thor sucked in a breath and stared down at his hands which were digging, white-knuckled, right through the fabric of the chair he was sitting in.  “I was a murderous fool.  Loki told me to turn back.  I think now of all the times he saved us and I gave him no credit.”  Thor kept on talking in a tightly-controlled monotone, as he told the rest, of Odin’s timely arrival, of their journey back to Asgard, of his father’s condemnation.

He wiped fruitlessly at the tears on his face.  More appeared.  “I lost my brother that day on Jotunheim, though I knew it not at the time.”  He tried to speak, faltered, and finally spoke again, his voice rough and uneven.  “Nor did I learn the truth until after I watched him fall into the void…”  His face had contorted with remembered grief.  “Then I learned what he had learned – what our parents kept from the both of us - I who had sworn to kill all the monsters.”

Bruce jerked, and Steve leaned forward, his hand on Bruce’s forearm. 

Thor was still talking.  “Loki was Jötunn by birth.” 

Tony sat bolt upright, eyes wide.  “You mean he’s really one of those blue giants?  Pretty short for a giant, by the way, though, yeah, still pretty tall.  The way we see him now – is that some kind of magical handwavy thing like what happens with cameras and anyone who doesn’t know him?”

Steve was trying to imagine it – Loki with blue scarred skin, with eyes the color of blood.

Puzzled, Thor looked at Tony, working out what Tony meant.  “No.  My parents worked a great casting.  His form as you see it now is no mere illusion but a true shift in every cell in his body to Asgardian form.”

Bruce leaned forward, and Steve looked at him, still worried, but any trace of rage had receded from Bruce’s face.  He appeared to be thinking at lightning speed.  “I would like to learn more about that.  A great deal more.” 

Tony eagerly put in, “Controlled system-wide cellular metamorphosis!  Controlled!  I want all the details, the formulas, the whatevers, everything.”

Thor was shaking his head.  “I have no knowledge of how this was accomplished, nor do I know if Midgardians possess the sorcery needed to do such workings.”

“Seriously?!”  Tony waved a hand at Steve.  “We’ve already done it successfully once.  Just because we lost the formula doesn’t mean we can’t do it again.  We just need the key to stabilizing the process.”

Steve stared at him, a wave of anger hitting him.  Erskine’s murder clearly meant nothing more to Tony than a loss to science.  He took a couple of deep breaths and shoved his anger down.  Now was not the time to get into this sort of discussion with Tony.

“As soon as you get back to Viking Central, Blondie, tell your dad we need to know this,” Tony persisted.

Thor gave Tony a tiny smile and a bemused nod.  “I will ask him, friend Tony.”

Steve, his imagination again filled with a vivid image of Loki as truly alien, said, “He didn’t know.  You said you lost him, on – ” he struggled with the pronunciation – “Jotunheim.  Something happened there.”

Thor’s gaze dropped for a moment, then he visibly forced himself to look Steve in the eye.  “My mother and I spoke of it.  She told me things I could not at first believe.  She told me of how Father had found an abandoned Jötunn baby at the end of the final battle.  He’d been left to die.  They chose to raise him as their son.  How could I believe her words?  Loki is my brother.  She told me many things, and finally I believed.  She said he told her during the battle a Jotnar had clasped his arm, and the skin of his birth became visible.”  Thor paused, looked away, took several deep breaths.  “He took it – not well.  I then understood that Loki believed himself to be a monster.  And it drove him mad.”

“Ya think?” Tony said, once again leaning back in his chair, eyelids drooping.  “Hell of a thing to find out by accident.”

Steve could barely imagine it – the shock of that revelation, of learning everything Loki had ever believed about himself was a lie.  And thought, unwillingly, of those final moments as the plane arrowed down to white expanse of ice; of how he had prepared himself to face death as that brilliant surface came up to meet his plane. 

And then woke up, to find almost everyone he knew, almost everything he knew, gone. 

Gone.

After what had felt to him like only a blank black space of time, he’d awakened thinking surely only a few hours had passed.  Only a few hours.

Not decades.

Thor had started speaking again.  “I learned on Midgard that the true monster had hold of my heart.   I returned, with the hope that I had not led Asgard into war; that I could make amends to the Jotnar.  But first I needed to understand why Loki did what he did.  Why – he had gone mad.  You asked why my brother sent the Destroyer after me.  He told me a cruel lie, but I now understand his madness.  After what he had learned about himself….  He would be seen by many as their enemy if anyone learned the truth.  He had been King, and the friends who came for me had betrayed him.  He saw them as traitors and in his madness he thought to destroy them.  He carried on the war I had started, disastrously.  He attempted a great evil against Jotunheim.  My heart had changed, and when I sought to understand his actions, he spoke with great rage.  We fought.  And then…”  Thor swallowed stopped, lowered his head to his hands.  

Steve already knew from what Thor had told Fury and Coulson earlier, a horrifying tale of what Loki had encountered in the Void; how it had sent him here for its own ends; how it remained an enemy of earth; how they would need Loki’s skills to prepare for the war to come.  More:  how the healers had guided Loki back to sanity, and how very grateful Thor was to have his brother back with him.

Knowing this didn’t stop his gut from clenching in horror at Thor’s next, barely audible words.

“He fell.  He – let go.”

Steve shuddered.  He could almost see it:  the loosened hand, Loki’s fall into infinity.  He glanced at Bruce, who was staring intently at Thor, tension apparent in his baggy-clothed body.  Steve reached out, squeezed Bruce’s hand.  Bruce was taking in deep, even breaths, but otherwise staying very still.  When Steve cut his eyes to the entryway, asking silently if Bruce wanted to leave, Bruce gave a minute shake of his head, then picked up his glass and took another sip.

Hands fumbling and shaky, Thor poured himself another drink and downed it in one gulp.   “He was lost to me; to all of us; lost to death, we believed.  When mother told us the glad news that he lived, when I found him again, living – I am not skilled with words and he would not answer.  Nor did I question what I should have – why he did what he did on Midgard.  I thought him wholly lost to madness.  When we returned to Asgard, though Loki would hear me not, I pled his case with Father.  Loki laughed in my face, calling me liar.  Father offered mercy and sent Loki to the healers instead of the dungeon.  They kept him for many days in seclusion.  When they finally allowed me to speak with him I went on my knees before him, as a thrall would do, and begged him to help me understand.  I rarely have seen true surprise on my brother’s face, but there it was.”  He paused, squeezing his eyes shut.  “He told me many things.  Some angry.  Some kind.  But he was back.  I had my brother back, and I am so very happy to have him once more by my side.”

He poured out the last dregs of the bottle into his cup, drained it, then leaned his head back, tear tracks still visible on his face.  He was asleep an instant later. Tony, sprawled in another chair, had also passed out.   


“Well,” Bruce said, glancing around at the two unconscious men.  “Interesting.”  There was a jagged edge in his voice and a hint of green in his eyes.  He fumbled for something in his pocket.

Steve swallowed against nausea; steeled himself to face what he had heard.  What had happened to Loki both before and after he fell into the void was every bit as disturbing as some of the horrors he had seen in the war.  “Are you OK?” he asked.

Bruce, who had kept up with Thor in drinking the Asgardian booze, now lit a cigarette, took a long drag, another, and placed the lighter back into his pocket.  Sweet smelling smoke filled the air, and the green cast to his skin faded back to his normal skin tone.  He met Steve’s gaze.  “Yeah,” Bruce said, taking another pull on his reefer.  He stared off into space.

“If what Thor says is true,” Steve said suddenly, “and he brings him to earth, what next?”

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” Bruce said after a long pause.  “And hope Thor is right and whatever Asgardian psychiatry is, it’s done him some good.”

“Do you think we can help him?  Help someone who thinks…”

“…he is a monster?” Bruce finished with an ironic twist to his lips.  “Well.  He has a purpose.  Revenge.  I didn’t have a purpose for a long time.  I was just running, looking for places to hide, staying low, trying to do whatever good I could.”  He leaned back, and stared off towards the ceiling, smoking in silence.  Thor was snoring, and Stark stirred, mumbled something, and fell quiet again.  “It’s good to have a purpose,” Bruce said finally.  “Here – I have a purpose.  I can do my research.  I can spend my time in the lab, doing the work I want to do, without feeling I’m being pursued all the time.  As for the Other Guy – well, he kinda likes having a purpose.  Permission to smash.  An aimed weapon, not a bomb.”

“I’m sure Director Fury will give Loki a purpose.”

Bruce snorted a laugh.  “No doubt.”  He finished the reefer and put it out.  “But that might not be enough.”

“Then we’ll just have to find another way to give him a purpose.”

Bruce gave him a noncommittal expression.  “We know almost nothing about him.  He’s an alien.  We may not have many points of reference in common.”

“A man who recognized recklessness and counseled for peace is someone I can understand.  He was that person, once.”

Bruce shrugged and closed his eyes.  He was quiet a long time.  Just about when Steve had decided to head back to his apartment a few floors down Bruce slit his eyes open.  “I used to think I had a monster gene.  Because of my father.  Now, HE was a monster.”  He squeezed his eyes shut and took a couple of deep breaths. Steve, who knew what Brian Banner had done, stayed quiet.  Bruce slowly relaxed, then opened his eyes again.  “I can’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly discover something like that about yourself the way Loki did.  But I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a race of monsters.

“Neither do I.”  Steve looked over at Thor, who remained deeply asleep.  “And neither does he.”

Bruce stood up, slightly unsteadily, sketched a wave and headed to the elevator. 

 

Steve blinked and realized he’d been staring at one particular bookshelf for who knows how long.  A quick glance showed Loki had moved to the end of the aisle and had pulled out a large book filled with color pictures – of what, Steve couldn’t see from where he stood.  He was glad to see Loki seemed to be interested enough in human books that he showed no signs of being bored or wanting to leave.

What had only been a remote possibility in his mind all those months ago, sparked by Thor’s revelations, now seemed more achievable.  When Thor had returned, with Loki and the other Asgardians, and when Steve realized how much time Loki would be spending at the Tower instead of at Fury’s undisclosed locations, that initial idea had taken root and quickly flowered. 

He’d found himself thinking obsessively about what Thor had told them that night.  His initial horror had grown into a deep need to do something to make Loki into a true ally, and possibly friend.

They worked very well together on the reconstruction projects; Loki showing a particular talent for knowing exactly what was needed to accomplish goals quickly and efficiently.  And when Loki was concentrating on his work, Steve saw a kind of peace on the alien face, an absorption with the magical mechanics of providing exactly what was needed precisely on time.  The conversations they had during those times were free of the complicated subterranean shades of meaning in almost everything Loki had said during the few opportunities he’d had to talk to Loki about other subjects, undercurrents that Loki mostly concealed under a bright and seemingly cheerful veneer of sarcasm.

Steve wanted very much to gain Loki’s confidence and trust, wanted him to feel truly at home on earth, to truly understand there was a place here for him. 

Because, despite Loki’s barriers and defenses, Steve could see the scars and the unhealed wounds beneath that carefully crafted surface.  He’d sought out Selvig for further advice.  The work Steve been pursuing with the Xavier Institute had been inspirational.  Now he had a concrete goal in mind:  to make Loki feel comfortable in his own skin.

Ordinarily he would have just started talking, but with someone like Loki who was so good at deflection and evasion, that wasn’t going to be enough.  The first part was simple:  just get Loki out of the Tower, away from the reminders of what he was here to do.  Let him experience for himself what life on earth was like.

For the second part:  all that remained to be done now was set the day and place.

Steve focused again on Loki, who had placed the book back on the shelf and glanced in his direction.  “Have you ought else of interest to keep me occupied this day?”  He sounded more than a bit bored.

“I was thinking of exploring the neighborhood here and trying out a restaurant Natasha recommended.” He moved with Loki to the cash register, where a stack of books was waiting for them.  Steve looked at the titles as they were run through the scanner.   They all appeared to be large fancy picture books, one on birds, another on architecture, another on scenic landscapes, and then there was one – he winced – all about the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian.  Steve tried to figure out some ulterior motive Loki might have in wanting these specific titles, but finally gave up.  He didn’t think there was anything here Loki could buy he couldn’t find on the internet.

They were halfway down the street, Loki in the middle of a long dissertation on the inefficiencies of Midgardian political systems, when it happened:  a man riding a bicycle veered close to the sidewalk and grabbed a purse right off the shoulder of a woman who’d stopped to look at her phone.  She shouted, but the bicyclist was already back in traffic, zigzagging between taxicabs.

Steve started running without thinking, faster and faster, weaving and dodging among the pedestrians, ignoring their shouts and curses, always keeping the bicyclist within view.  The rider kept on riding, obviously oblivious, because he slowed down after a couple of blocks and began pacing traffic, then edged to the right and turned a corner.

Steve was ready for him and raced alongside.   A young man with straggly blond hair looked at him in surprise then shouted as Steve grabbed the handlebars and pulled him up on the sidewalk, catching him as, arms flailing, he tipped off the side.  With one arm he held the man’s arms still.  He pulled out his cellphone and pressed the speed-dial for the police.

When the police had come and gone, taking lots of statements from witnesses, including the victim, who got her purse back intact, Steve took a breath and suddenly remembered Loki was obligated to be within a certain distance of either him or Director Fury whenever Loki was outside of Stark Tower or wherever Fury kept him during his time with the scientists.

He found him quickly, leaning nonchalantly against a nearby wall wearing an amused smile.

“Ever the hero,” Loki said.

“It’s what I do.”  Steve glanced around, but aside from a few autograph-seekers, the crowd they’d attracted was already dissipating.  He was once again grateful for the blasé New York attitude.

“Dinner?” he suggested.  Loki joined him and they headed down the cross street.

 

Later, over steaks and red wine, Loki twirled his glass and looked into its depths, then gave Steve an inquisitive glance.  “Tell me.  Your thief - will he have his hand cut off?” 

Steve stared at him, appalled, “Of course not.  We don’t do things like that.” 

“And yet that punishment is still customary in your realm.  I saw a video on YouTube showing this happening to a thief in another part of your realm.”

Steve swallowed.  “You do understand the differences between countries?”

“Tiny petty kingdoms, all in conflict with each other.”  Loki waved a hand.  “I cannot keep track; they are so numerous.”

“How do they handle this in Asgard?  Do you have thieves?”

Loki snorted.  “Of course we do.  Fools are common to all realms.  The punishment – they are bespelled to feel intense pain if they so much as consider planning a theft.”

“Similar to what was done to you?”  


“Precisely.”

There was a gleam in his eyes as if the joke was on Steve, and Steve suddenly wondered about the loopholes.  How much could Loki lie about?  “So, you were researching punishments?”

“I am seeking to understand your world.  Perhaps you can help me.  You are a hero, and yet there are those who despise you, for a variety of reasons, it appears.  I have seen their ‘posts’ on the internet.  How is it that they are allowed to openly say such things about their heroes, nobility and rulers?  I have seen even viler things posted about Tony Stark.  Vile,” Loki smirked, “but truthful.” 

Steve could just imagine.  “We have something called freedom of speech in this country.”

“Do you not deserve the respect of your people?  You are their hero.”  There was a certain twist to Loki’s smile when he pronounced the word ‘hero’.

“People are allowed to say or write whatever they want, within certain guidelines.  Legal action can be taken if the accusations are not true.”  He was very aware of Loki’s skeptical look.

“There are many things said about you which are not true. Will you take such action?”

“I try to ignore it.”

“Do not these slights bother you?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t experienced before.  You should have heard what they said about me when I was a kid.”

Loki sat back, and a blank, then bleak look crossed his face, before being replaced with an expression of false curiosity.  “Your idioms can be most peculiar.  I understand they are called trolls.”  He paused, a considering look on his face.  “Some have even threatened you.  Shall I send an actual troll after them?”

“What? No! Wait – are there such things as trolls?” 

Loki gave an airless laugh.  “Thor has slaughtered many of them.  Vanaheim is especially prone to them.”  He sipped at this wine, then gestured at the narrow restaurant around them, its dark booths, its tin ceiling.  “Mortal lives can be hard to comprehend – it seems like only yesterday that a hall less fine than this meager one was all your kings could imagine as the height of luxury while most of you were toiling in the fields with your beasts of burden or hunting and killing game while your women tended your fields or spent their time grinding grains and weaving cloth.  Oh yes, you had your towering achievements.  Only for the few, though.  Princes of your realms, such as your Mr. Stark.”

Steve recognized a bear trap when he saw it.  The last thing he wanted was to find himself in a political argument with Loki.  Particularly when he agreed with him.   “We’ve made great advancements over the years.  We’re not perfect, but we have found ways to improve the lives of most people.”

“And yet I see beggars on your streets.”

“And I’m working to help them, coordinating with many organizations.  I’m taking part in a public-private charity event in a couple of months, to raise money for at risk youth.  You’ve been helping on some of the building projects.”

“Ah,” Loki said, his expression betraying nothing. 

Just then the check arrived, and by the time they were back out on the street the conversation had been dropped.  But Steve noticed Loki giving him speculative sidelong glances, and for his part he had a lot to think about as to why Loki was researching criminal punishments. From what Thor had told them, Loki’s parole would not end until they succeeded (he refused to think of the alternative) in defeating the deadly warlord still infinities away in space.  But what then?  Did Loki have plans beyond that, when the spell ended?

He was still amazed by the dramatic change in Loki since his return.  He’d seemed calm, if sometimes brittle, and during the times they were together there was a sense of peace between him and Thor.  He certainly no longer had the look of madness in his eyes, but there were still undercurrents, still a sense of concealment and false fronts, a parallel to the red-haired persona he wore while out in public.  He couldn’t help remembering what a good actor Loki was, how well he was able to manipulate appearances and words.

This made him all the more determined to try to show Loki there were other ways of living as this new world he was in had made abundantly clear.  That someone who had so much of his sense of who he was ripped away from him so suddenly and tragically still had a place among others that didn’t involve violence and rage.

On their way back to Stark Tower Steve led Loki on a leisurely walk back through Greenwich Village along tree-lined streets crowded with apartment buildings on a smaller scale than the towering skyscrapers elsewhere in Manhattan.   Loki paused every once in awhile to glance at the people inside corner bars and cafes but didn’t indicate any further interest in going inside any of the stores until they paused to look in an art gallery window. 

The gallery was featuring the works of a painter named Nikodem Kovačević.  Steve had never heard of him.  There were several abstract pieces on display in the store window, and Steve studied them with interest.  He’d always been interested in the many artists experimenting with the emotional impact of pure form and color, and though he preferred doing representational art himself, he had always been able to get lost in the subtle – or blatant – messages this type of art could convey.

Steve stepped closer to examine the piece Loki was examining.

It was a chaos of color, the canvas filled with pure reds and greens and golds in jagged overlapping fireburst patterns, underlaid and overlaid with slashes of muddier greys and browns, in some areas done in impasto, the layering so thick in places that dark ridges and blobs stood out from the canvas, while between them fine lines etched in pure colors wove and paralleled and tangled and parted randomly.  In others the canvas had been slashed and gouged with more than one kind of sharp tool.  It was unsettling, and powerful, and vast, and Loki seemed rapt in contemplation.

“What do you think of that piece?”

“It is as if I’m looking at myself.”  Loki spoke in such a low voice that Steve wondered if he’d even realized he’d said it out loud.

Steve studied Loki’s face.  “How does it make you feel?”

Loki glanced at him, something vulnerable flickering across his face, then hardening.  A second later he pasted a polite smile on his mouth and an opaque look in his eyes.  “Perhaps I should learn to paint.”

Steve persisted, “Do you feel you can understand the mind of the artist?”

“Perhaps we perceive in some similar way,” Loki allowed after looking at the piece again.

After another long moment Steve suggested, “Do you want to go inside and see his other works?”

Not waiting for Steve, Loki headed through the door.

The artist’s paintings were displayed over several walls, each piece perfectly lit and positioned with an eye to its interplay with neighboring pieces.  The gallery representative had the perfect manners of the waiters at the high class restaurants Tony sometimes took them to, appearing not to be present or listening and yet unobtrusively available to answer questions.

Loki paused in front of a triptych. 

The three pieces were of unequal sizes, the one on the left being significantly larger than the second or third.  It showed a jagged horizontal ropy red line, mingled crimson and scarlet and the color of old dried blood twisted and tangled into a frayed braid laid out horizontally across the canvas.  Above, mostly empty white with a gleaming gold smear winding along the upper edge of the canvas.  Below, an oily inchoate black cloud crowded the edges, with a few slashed lines of ocher and poison green in the rare open areas.

The second canvas showed a similar line, the jagged edges subtly changing into even curves, the colors becoming more pure, with a line of blue edging the top while a murky grey showed beneath.

The final painting showed an even wavelike form, pure turquoise blue on top then shifting beneath to indigo, purple, and red, while underneath there was an uneven line of mismatched black and ocher with green dots.

Loki frowned at the title card.  The title, “Quetiapine Fumarate.” 

“I don’t know what it means, either,” Steve said.

Loki pronounced the word slowly, as if tasting it, and then his expression changed to understanding, recognition, and a fierce curiosity. “So mortals do approve of changing another’s thoughts and emotions.”

“What?”  Instantly alert, Steve turned his entire attention on Loki, who was studying the painting again.  “What do you mean by that?”

Loki explained, condescendingly slowly, “Quetiapine Fumarate.  A potion to calm and settle the mind to follow approved paths.”

“Psychiatric medication,” Steve said, a strange note in his voice. 

Loki’s gaze sharpened. “Were you ever asked to take such?”

“Yes, but it didn’t work on me.  Most medications don’t work on me.”  Steve wondered if he should have divulged that information, but something in Loki’s eyes indicated he appreciated Steve’s honesty.  “I understand they help a lot of people.  I talked to the shrinks instead.  It helped,” he added after a moment.

“’Shrinks’?” Loki said, amused.

“Headshrinker.  Slang for psychiatrist.  It does sound funny, doesn’t it?” 

Loki gave him an aloof look but didn’t answer.  Steve wanted to ask about Loki’s time with the Asgardian healers, but Loki turned his attention back to the third piece of the triptych and he decided to hold off until they were in a more private setting.

“Is this one your favorite?”

“There is truth in this artist’s work.”  He then added, in a voice so low Steve barely made it out.  “They gave me potions on Asgard, to quiet my mind.” 

After a moment, Steve said in the same near-whisper, “What did you think about that?”

Loki looked at him with a bright, false expression.  “I prefer mead.”  Loki glanced over where the sales clerk was discreetly not-hovering and made a subtle gesture.  The woman was immediately there, and a second later Loki was arranging to purchase the work he’d first seen in the window, which was titled “Góra Lodowa,”  and have it shipped to where he was living.

By a slight widening of her eyes and an almost imperceptible intake of breath, the representative obviously recognized the address.  Her attitude and offers of assistance quickly became even more deferential.  Steve watched as the transaction, in the amount of five figures, went through.  Appalling!  Things cost so much these days!  Finance was something he didn’t understand, but he knew inflation had something to do with the rise of the Nazis.  Maybe something like this had happened in the US when he went under the ice.  He couldn’t believe how everything was sold on credit now.  Isn’t that how they got into the Depression in the first place?  Too much credit. He added economics to his ever growing “to read” list. 

Loki laughed about the clerk’s attitude after they’d left the premises, with the promise of the delivery of the artwork early the following day.

“I believe she increased the price once she knew its destination,” Loki observed, his long stride almost outpacing Steve’s as they made their way through crowds of people hurrying along the sidewalks and clumping at the crosswalks and surging across streets with scant regard for the hordes of yellow taxis pushing their way through intersections. 

 “Are you always this cynical?” Steve asked while waiting for the crowd ahead of them to start moving again.  The answer was obvious, but he just wanted to hear what Loki had to say.

Loki gave him an ‘are you kidding me?’ side eye.  “I am a prince of Asgard; I recognize obsequious behavior, done with proper decorum.”

“Thor isn’t that cynical.”

“Thor is a naïve oaf.”  Loki’s tone was light, and was that a look of fondness in his eyes?

In front of them, a tall long-limbed willowy woman wearing a turban and very little else suddenly came to an abrupt halt and shouted, “Fuck!” as something she’d dropped fell right through a grate.  Steve put his hand on Loki’s arm and stopped, irritating the people behind them who added their own profane commentary as they pushed past.  The woman, whose tiny pink top and denim short shorts revealed an expanse of skin an oddly even shade of pinkish brown, its smooth tone resembling that of a store mannequin rather than a living being, continued shouting a stream of obscenities as she bent down to peer into the grate.  A few people paused to glance at her, then moved on. 

“Can I help you?” Steve asked.  She looked up, giving Steve a quick glimpse of her startling face.  She had penciled-in eyebrows, the same kind fashionable ladies favored back in the pre-war years when he’d been in his teens.  Even more startling, she didn’t appear to have any eyelashes at all.  She ignored him, looked back down, and suddenly extended her arm, which grew longer and more prehensile until it was small enough to worm through the grate.  After a few more moments, still scowling, she withdrew her arm, which rapidly returned to its original state, and dropped whatever it was she’d picked up inside her purse.  She snapped it shut and marched on.

A few people had stopped to watch but once the show was over they hurried away.  Steve shook his head.  He would never, ever get used to the way ladies cursed like soldiers these days.  Steve checked Loki’s reaction, already deciding how to bring up the subject foremost in his mind.  Loki’s expression was noncommittal and he didn’t comment.  Steve decided to bring up the subject of mutants as they got back in the tower.  Suddenly a new concern occurred to him as they started moving forward again, pressed in on all sides by the crowd.  “You didn’t charge that painting to Tony, did you?”

Loki gave him a sidelong glance.  “I paid for it myself.”

“With what?” Steve asked as they reached the opposite side of the street and headed to Stark tower.

“I have my own account.”  Loki stepped through the front door, Steve right behind.  Security ignored them but kept their own watch, in addition to the countless electronic guards, focused on the other people entering the tower on errands and other business.

“And how did you get your own account?”

Loki responded, as they headed toward the bank of elevators, in a tone of infinite patience, “Through the internet.” 

“Then you could have paid for the dinner you charged to Tony?” Steve reached into his pocket for the card key to the elevator.

“Yes, but what would be the fun in that?”

“Where is your money coming from?” Steve wondered.  “From all those new gold mines?”

Loki threw him an amused glance, then stepped ahead so quickly he left Steve behind.  He waved a hand at the card slot by the private elevator.  The door slid open immediately and he stepped inside.

Steve increased his stride to catch up.  “Wait!” 

Loki gave Steve a big grin as the door closed, leaving Steve standing in the lobby.

Steve huffed a sigh and used his card, resigning himself to waiting while the numbers on the display traveled most of the way to the top and then headed slowly back down again. 


	3. Adventures at the Zoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you wish to say something to me say it plainly.” Loki’s smile was deliberately casual, but Steve saw the way his hands had clenched. “You have no skill at lying or deception.”

Steve watched Loki contemplating the green snake wrapped around a branch, studiously ignoring the army of children squealing and swarming around them.  While some of the kids were making “ICK” noises at the sight of snakes, others were pressing closer to the glass to see close up what was proclaimed to be an ‘emerald tree boa’.  The colors of its scaled body ranged from the blue-green of a Crayola crayon to chartreuse.  Steve’s fingers itched for color pencils, wanting to capture those shades.

A few of the kids were making comments about Slytherins.  Steve had seen those movies, and knew Loki had, as well.  Tony had taken to calling him Voldemort for a while.  Loki had grinned and thanked him for the compliment.

They were in the tropic zone of the Central Park Zoo, which featured animals Steve had never seen before.  Seeing how much the children were enjoying themselves, sharing in their experience, reminded him of all the things that were right with this world, and he found himself relaxing.

Loki turned his attention away from the snake.  “You were thinking of something far away just now.”  For once, his voice didn’t seem to carry any kind of double meaning. 

“I was just thinking I have the chance to do so many things now I didn’t have before.  Like go to the zoo.  I never had the chance as a kid.  My mother was working such long hours, and there were months at a time when I wasn’t well enough to be out of the house.”

Loki hummed at that, and gave the snake another glance.

“What kind of snakes do you have on Asgard?”

“Very few, but on other realms there are ones **_much_** larger than this one.”  He’d raised his voice slightly, and a couple of the closest-by children paused to stare at him.  He gave them a conspiratorial grin and headed to the exit of the exhibit and outside into bright daylight.

Steve followed, considering what it would be like to see alien animals.  “I expect this is all very ordinary for you.”  He matched Loki’s stride as they headed along the pathway, letting the other man take the lead.  There was less tension around the set of Loki’s shoulders out in the greenery.  He would have expected Loki to dislike Central Park, being the site of his ignominious departure from his previous visit to earth, but he hadn’t seemed in the least bit discomfited by the idea of being there.

It had been the better part of a month before Steve had the chance to take Loki on another outing.  He hadn’t found the opportunity for his planned talk with Loki, as SHIELD had shown up the very same night Loki had bought the painting, now nearly four weeks ago, and taken Loki to one of their “undisclosed locations” for the next step in weapons development.  He’d been gone for over two weeks, and when he returned, his entire body thrummed with tension, and when he hadn’t been staring off blankly into the distance his face had been set in a semi-permanent scowl.  And every time Steve had tried to discuss his concerns about what was happening to Loki during these times away, he had either made a nasty cutting remark or walked away.

“So how was Tromsø?” The night Loki had returned, Tony entered his penthouse great room like a star taking the stage. 

“What’s Tromsø?” Steve had asked.

The scowl faded from Loki’s face, replaced by a look of almost approval.  “SHIELD’s ‘undisclosed location.’” 

Tony had laughed while he fixed drinks.  Handing Loki a large drinking glass containing most of the contents of a bottle of whiskey, he rattled off, “The super-ultra-above-top-secret-eyes-only undisclosed location. An underground facility in Tromsø, Norway.  I can give you the GPS coordinates.”  He took a sip of his drink.  “They should have invited me.  They certainly knew I’d be hacking them.  How’s Jane Foster?”

“For a mortal she is quite learned and a surprisingly quick study.”  Steve listened for a grudging tone in Loki’s voice, but his respect for Thor’s scientist girlfriend seemed genuine.  Loki drank down half the whiskey like it was soda.  “You need not be concerned over their respect for your abilities.  Though they do say all manner of disrespectful things about your personal habits.” Tony laughed, and took another sip. “Moreover, they do intend to involve you at the point actual construction is required.  They’re only working with theories now.”

Loki finished his whiskey and set the glass down.  “SHIELD takes its name literally, it would appear.  I’ve given them the knowledge they need to create a shield around your realm, though at the rate they are going it will take them another decade to complete it.  The weapons systems, a little while longer.”

“Which is why they should be involving me right now,” Stark put in.

Loki didn’t seem concerned about the timeframe, but Steve, worried by his indifference, asked, “When is the enemy expected to arrive?”

“It won’t be long.  Fifty or sixty of your years.  The shield should be complete well before then.”  He showed his teeth in a false smile.  “Unless, of course…”  His face darkened, and a bleak look flickered across his face. “That was why I… was required.  Before.  To create a stable rift.  There are other means to accomplish the same thing where **_he_** dwells.  I am not the only one with this knowledge.  It all depends on speed and the chaos of luck.  **_He_** might arrive at any time.”

“Let’s get back to work, then,” Tony said. “As for the planned global defense system, I came up with several ideas of my own.”

Tony and Loki had disappeared into Tony’s workshop at that point, and for the next several days they’d rarely come up for food and drink and naps before diving back into their work.  Then Tony had emerged, showered, shaved, and dressed in an expensive suit, and headed off with Pepper to Tokyo. 

Steve’s next attempt at an outing, just a couple of days after Tony’s departure, had been an utter failure.  Taking Loki to a baseball game had been a complete waste of time.  After the initial opening, a look of supreme boredom had settled on his face and he’d spent the rest of his time looking at incomprehensible scientific equations on his StarkPhone, occasionally tapping out a message.

Another week dedicated to reconstruction projects had gone by before a free day presented itself.  Steve had suggested an outing to the Central Park Zoo.  He’d wanted to do something outdoors himself and hoped Loki might as well.

He’d fully expected the offer to be refused, but instead Loki had immediately agreed. 

Then, all Steve had to do was let Azniv know the time and place.  Fortunately, she’d been available and agreed to meet them.  But now that the day was upon him, he was getting a bit edgy.  He reminded himself a direct conversation would never have worked with Loki.  He would have evaded, distracted, or simply walked away. 

He’d prepared Azniv for that very possibility, but she had assured him that because of her line of work she was used to that kind of behavior.

He caught up with Loki.  For this occasion, he was dressed in what was for him casual clothing – black slacks and jacket, with some kind of nubby green shirt beneath which closed with ties, not buttons.  It seemed very different to Steve, but considering what so many of the people around them were wearing, or not wearing, it was clear Steve was the only one who thought it was out of place.

The bright summer sun highlighted the contrast between Loki’s inky hair and his pale skin, emphasized the fine sculpting of his sharp-featured face.  Steve thought, not for the first time, he’d like to draw Loki’s portrait.  He was thinking Conté crayon, perhaps finished with pastels.  Yet he kept holding back.  He wasn’t sure how Loki would respond.  There was an intimacy in this type of portraiture, of looking directly at another person that closely for so long. 

Loki had paused to look at a white leopard.  Steve hadn’t known they came in this color before, but he was more interested in watching Loki, who had a look of mild interest on his face.  “I had thought your realm had larger, fiercer beasts,” Loki observed.  “This is nothing like the royal menagerie.”

“There’s a much larger zoo nearby, in the Bronx, in case you’d like to visit there someday.  They have lions and elephants and giraffes and, well, pretty much everything.”

A crowd of chattering children, shepherded by two harried-looking women, went by, along with the usual assortment of tourists.  “Are peasants allowed to come here too?  I would have thought sights such as these would be reserved for your world’s nobility.” 

“No, zoos are for everyone.”  Steve kept his voice placid and patient.  He wasn’t going to let Loki get on his nerves with his snobbish comments.

Loki gave him a condescending smile, and they moved on to a grey rocky habitat where two huge white bears were swimming in an artificial lake.  Loki studied them for a moment.  “Such puny things would make a fine hors d'oeuvre for a lyngbakr.”

Steve took his attention away from the polar bears.  They looked plenty big to him.  “What’s that?”

“A monster from another realm.  It lies beneath ice floes, waiting for prey.”

“So – a very large animal.  What is the royal menagerie like?  Do you have a lin – en – bah- ker in it?”

“No.  But the Allfather has many creatures from many realms in his menagerie.”  One of the bears had climbed out of the water.  It gave them a brief, uninterested look and settled down on a rocky ledge.  “But each dwells in its own land, as close as magic can make it, so they exist at once on Asgard and on their own native lands or seas.  Here, the limits of their cages are manifest; there, they know not they are captive.”

Steve considered the confines of the polar bear enclosure.  “That’s wonderful.  They can live their lives as they were meant to be.”

“A cage is a cage, visible or intangible.”  Loki stared into the enclosure, a bitter twist to his lips.  “I would rather know the bounds of my cage than be deluded into thinking myself free, as so many do.” 

Steve knew he had to step carefully.  “There are consequences for every action.”

Loki’s lips thinned.  “For some.  For others, as long as they are who the people want them to be all is easily forgiven.  But for some…”  He huffed a pained sound.  “…nothing they ever do is right.  While Thor paraded around in his armor, swinging his hammer, I studied history.  I knew what Odin Borson did.  What Bor Burison himself did.  I thought to follow in their path.  And yet I still got it wrong.” 

“I don’t understand.”  Steve knew, on a gut level, whatever it was Loki was talking around, it was crucial to who he was.

Loki turned on him, and Steve steeled himself to face the rage flaring in those green eyes.  Rage which suddenly guttered out into regret and pain.  “I do.  Now.”

Steve waited, but Loki turned back to stare into the enclosure.  “I thought myself free.  And yet everything I did enclosed a cage around myself.”

Steve said after a moment, “We all have constraints.” 

“Of heritage and status,” Loki said bitterly.

“We also all have choices,” Steve said, voice firm and clear.

Loki gave Steve a considering smile.  “Why, then, do you choose to burden yourself with such restrictions when you do not have to?  You, as a soldier, are as unfree as these beasts.  Did you not think, on your awakening, to cast off that burden?”

He had.  He remembered those first, lost weeks, where there was nothing but confusion and grief and nightmares and loss, when his dreams and memories had been full of Peggy and Bucky and the Commandos, when every step down every street reminded him of all that was forever gone.

When he had realized how utterly irrevocably the world had changed and he had no idea of what his place in it was going to be.  But he didn’t say it.  “I chose to be a soldier.  Then and now.  I’m where I am because of the choices I’ve made, not the choices others have made for me.”

“Only perhaps you are unaware of what choices others may have made for you, and only think yourself free.  Always following their orders, their rules.  Always believing yourself to be free.  So many blindly follow the rules set down for them by some ancient tradition and think themselves free.  They say, ‘this is the way we live.  This is how things are done.  This is how things have always been.’”  Loki turned sharply on him, filled with jittery energy.  “But be something other than what is expected and find only closed minds and open gossiping mouths.  And there are always so many to point out the walls of your prison, not thinking about the walls around themselves.”

_Freedom is life’s greatest lie._   Steve remembered watching that video, and hearing those chilling words, spoken by a man who looked as if he had seen a thousand wars.

A man who was clearly aware of the prison he was in, both self-imposed, and not.

“Is that what your research on me revealed?” he said, getting back to Loki’s first point, making his voice gentle and calm.

Was that a look of admiration, quickly concealed, in Loki’s eyes?  “But I forget.  You have not always chosen to heed constraints.  Your heroics in your war – not always authorized by those in charge, yes?”

“Not always, no. I do what I think is morally right.  That’s different from blindly following rules.”

Loki smirked, a pleased glint in his eyes.  Steve knew Loki thought he’d won a point.  Steve’s opinion was that Loki had entirely missed the point.

The Zoo was small, and it didn’t take them more than part of the afternoon to see all the animals. Steve suggested walking through more of the park, and they spent some time doing so.   Children were playing, couples strolling, students lying in the grass with their tablets and phones, and old men were playing games at tables.  It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny.  Steve suddenly flashed on what parts of the Park had looked like back in his day, when he and Bucky, still just kids, had ridden into the city on one of his better days and explored part of the park, seeing all the shanties on the Great Lawn filled with the homeless who had lost everything in the Crash.  That had made him feel lucky, because at least his mother had a job and he had an apartment to go home to.

After glancing at his watch, Steve suggested lunch.  He led them to the café he’d chosen ahead of time.  They sat down at an outdoor table.  That would be enough time, he decided.  She should be by in about 20 minutes.  Enough time for them to order lunch, not enough time to finish. 

He fought down a wave of nervousness.  He’d made and discarded a dozen plans.  He’d thought more than once about the wisdom of introducing Loki and Azniv this way, but decided in the end that this way was as good as any other, and the important thing was to expose Loki to another viewpoint.  Now that he understood what Loki had gone through, he felt it was crucial for Loki to understand that others had gone through the same journey; that there was a community, though human, of people who knew only too well what his experiences had been like. 

He’d been turning this over in his mind since Thor’s first visit.  After everyone had awakened the next morning and found themselves back in the great room, being served breakfast by Tony’s robots, Tony and Bruce pestered Thor for more details about Loki’s transformation from one species to another.  Tony wanted to know, since it was reversible under certain circumstances, could Loki do it at will?  Thor had replied that Loki was able to do so, but his answers to their persistent questions only revealed that he did not have the knowledge to aid them.  He had returned to Asgard shortly after eating a huge breakfast, advising them he would return when the healers deemed Loki able to take on his required tasks.

Steve settled back in his chair, enjoying the warm day.  Their table was shaded by a large umbrella, and seeing Loki’s face in the changed light and perspective brought back his desire to do Loki’s portrait.  Every angle, every slight change of expression or tilt of his head, rather than making him seem more familiar, added to the extraordinary quality of his face.

Maybe someday he’d ask, Steve thought, well aware he might never get the chance.

When their number was called Steve got up to retrieve their food from the counter.  At Loki’s suggestion, Steve had ordered lunch for them, and he prepared himself for Loki’s no-doubt sarcastic comments on the 7-Ups, hamburgers and fries.  Steve decided, as he set the food down for them and took his seat, that whether or not Loki wanted to go with him, he would plan a visit to the Bronx Zoo when he got the chance.  He was about to suggest a visit there when Loki took a sip of the 7-Up and made a faint, but discernible sound of distaste. 

Steve had already drunk half of his own 7-Up, when the tiniest gesture of one of Loki’s fingers changed the taste utterly.  He coughed, choked, swallowed, and glared.

“What did you do?”

“Made it into something more palatable.” He sipped at his own glass and smiled. 

Steve stared at his drink.  It looked nearly the same – clear, with bubbles – but was now a pale gold color.  He sniffed at it.  “Alien wine?”

“Midgardian champagne.  Lafite Rothschild.”

Steve took a dubious sip.  It wasn’t bad.  “So this is what champagne tastes like.”  He paused, and responded to the smirk on Loki’s lips.  “Are we going to be hearing from Tony about this?”

“I expect so.” Loki grinned at the prospect, and took another delicate sip.  “It’s the premiere cru.”  He smiled at the obvious look of bafflement on Steve’s face.

“I have no idea what that means,” he admitted.  Loki, looking smug, explained.

Steve studied the contents of his paper cup.  Loki’s long fingers, of course, were holding a delicate long-stemmed glass. “Is this why you brought up the penalties for theft?”

Loki treated him to a toothy grin.  “I did leave Stark some gold rings in exchange.”

Steve sighed in exasperation.  “That’s really not the point.” 

Loki looked utterly unrepentant.  Steve drank the rest of the champagne.  It was a shame to let something doubtless incredibly expensive go to waste.  But he still would have preferred 7-Up with his burgers and fries.  Loki’s meal had transformed into some kind of fish, complete with bones, in a pale sauce with artfully arranged purple and yellow and green vegetables. 

“I had not thought to ask Stark if he goes on hunts,” Loki said suddenly.  “Do you?  I have not heard any of you speak of such or seen your trophies.” 

“No, I’ve never gone,” Steve said.  “I’m just a city kid.  I know out in the country people hunted for food.  Deer and other animals.”  Another thing he didn’t know the answer to.  So much had changed.

Loki’s eyes were intent on his.  “Do your nobility still seek trophies?  Thor has quite a collection of dragon and griffin heads and various creatures from many realms.  You don’t have such grand beasts at your disposal.  Do you hunt for these puny beasts?  Your polar bears and leopards?  They would hardly be worth the bother.” 

“I’ve seen things like that in the movies – guys on safari in Africa; animal heads on their walls, tiger and bear rugs on the floor.  That was for rich guys.”  He thought of Tony’s clean industrial tower.  “I don’t know if people do that anymore.  For show, I mean; I expect people still do it for food.  Or maybe not.  I’ve never heard anyone talk about going hunting.  Another thing I should ask about, I guess.  I hadn’t even wondered about it.”  It seemed every day was another revelation of all the things he’d never thought to ask if they had changed.  He ignored the pang of sorrow.  It was surprising when things hadn’t changed, vanishingly few as they were.

He resisted the urge to check his watch and fought down a wave of nerves, sure she would be on time.

And there she was, entering the outdoors dining area, her seven-year-old son Hitoshi with her.  She did it well, glancing around as if looking to choose a table, heading towards one, and then glancing in his direction, stopping with a look of surprise on her face.

Then a warm smile and her approach.  Hitoshi broke free and raced forward.  “Steve!  Steve!”  His orange-patterned wings unfurled as if he were about to take flight, but he kept his discipline, folded them and just raced forward toward him on the ground.  Steve stood, swept him up in a hug and set him on his feet again.

The woman followed at a more sedate pace, but her long stride had her there a bare second behind the child.  “Steve.”  She patted his forearm, her fingers ending in retractable claws, her dozen or so bangle bracelets jangling.  Her intelligent dark eyes, crinkled at the corners with smile lines, were filled with good humor.   Other people had glanced in their direction, and for the most part turned their attention back to what they’d been doing, except for a few children and one old woman who were blatantly staring at them.  For a moment Steve saw her as these strangers did.  Her strong defined nose and wide mouth were set in a striking face.  Her long hair, black sheened with gold, fell well below her shoulder blades.  She was wearing a sleeveless green and orange leaf-patterned blouse with plain white shorts and sandals that showed off her tan skin, which was patterned with the same sort of spots the leopard bore. 

Steve glanced at Loki, who had stood as well.  He glanced from the woman to the child, his face showing nothing more than polite curiosity.

“Loki, I’d like to introduce Azniv Hayrabedian and her son Hitoshi Yoshida.”

Loki took her hand the way Steve had done and added a tiny bow.  “So,” he glanced questioningly at Steve, who shifted slightly, then back at her. “A happy coincidence we meet?  Just out for a stroll in the park?” Loki inquired with an ironic tinge to his voice but a very polite smile on his mouth.

She responded as if he’d meant it literally.  “Yes, Hitoshi loves coming to the park.  He particularly likes going to the zoo to see the animals,” she added with a quirk to her mouth and a light touch to the boy’s shoulder, “Particularly the snow leopard.”  The child grinned and then put his head down shyly.

She took the seat Steve offered her.  Hitoshi tugged at her arm, and she gave him a nod and a hand signal.  He stretched his wings and darted up to settle on the branches of a nearby tree.  A few nearby people continued to watch them, mainly children.  No one looked hostile or made any move to approach them.

Azniv pulled out a bottle of water from a turquoise-colored tote and took a long drink, then set it down on the table and looked at Loki with curiosity.  “Loki, right?  Steve told me you were working with him on some projects.”

“I have a certain amount of expertise in various areas which have been of help to him.”  Steve repressed a smile at the way Loki could talk like a politician, use words to say nothing at all.

“He said you’d done quite a lot of the behind the scenes work at the reopening of the Baylor Building.”

“Materials coordination, mostly.”

She gave him a warm smile.  “Thank you for your help.  I was impressed by how quickly the work came along.  I’m working with the Xavier Institute.  They’re planning on a grand re-opening in August on the 15th.  I’d be happy to send you an invitation, if you’d be interested.”  She glanced at Steve.  “You haven’t answered my email.”

He spread his hands.  “Modern technology.”  He offered an apologetic smile.

Hitoshi soared back down from the tree and landed lightly.  He ran behind his mother then peeked around her at Loki. 

Loki clasped his hands together then spread them slowly apart.  The child’s mouth formed an “O” as a several large bubbles appeared between Loki’s outspread palms, each containing a tiny winged creature.  He resisted his curiosity for about half a second, then ran forward and tentatively touched one with an index finger.

It vanished and the tiny creature within, a golden double-winged figure, its tiny face alight with curiosity, settled onto his arm for a second, then lifted up and, wings beating, darted away until it disappeared into the distance.  Hitoshi chortled with glee and touched another and a third, and all of them until nearly a dozen miniature forms swirled around him and then with one accord formed a flock and flew off in the direction the first one had taken.  Steve took a second to wonder what Loki had just unleashed into the world, then gave a mental shrug.  It was probably just an illusion.

Azniv was watching Loki with a pleased expression on her face.  She clasped Hitoshi to her side.  He was still staring off at the point where the winged beings had vanished, an expression of pure delight on his face.

She ruffled his dark hair, and when he looked up at her she said, “How about some ice cream?”

“Yes!” he crowed excitedly.

“I’ll get it,” Steve said, getting to his feet, but she waved him off.  She bent down to Hitoshi.  “What kind of ice cream do you want?”

“Chocolate,” he said in a pure high voice. 

“Steve?  Loki?”

She left with their orders of strawberry and chocolate respectively.  Hitoshi was staring at Loki with curiosity.  “Can you make more?”

“Yes, but would you like to see something else?”

“Sure!  What else can you do?”

“Many things,” he said, and with a gesture he created an image of a slowly spinning globe in the air.  Steve recognized it as the earth – and what a strange thing it was, to know what their own world looked like from space!  Of all the unbelievable things he had learned since waking from the ice, for a long time the knowledge men had been to the moon had been at the top of the list.  Until the actual space alien invasion, that is.  And now there were actual aliens living in the same building he did. 

Hitoshi reached out and touched it at some point in the mid-Atlantic.  For several seconds an endless expanse of ocean became visible, then vanished again.  The globe kept turning, and his next touch brought up a view of a high mountain range.  Others were looking at them, and some children ran forward to watch and comment.

When Azniv returned carrying a cardboard tray with four cups of ice cream, complete with pink plastic spoons, Loki vanished the globe away, to the loudly expressed disappointment of the children.

Hitoshi settled in one of the metal chairs as his mother handed out the ice cream.  Hitoshi dug in, while Steve and Loki sampled their own. 

Azniv had focused all her attention on Loki.  “Mr. Loki, I don’t know if you know anything about the Xavier Institute, but we’re always looking for advisors.  I don’t know what your position is on various issues that concern our community, and I’m sure you’re a very busy man, but would you be interested in learning more about our program?”

“Perhaps,” he said, with a sidelong glance at Steve that contained the kernel of something hard and angry.   Steve met his gaze levelly, but inwardly was wondering if having Loki meet them like this had been a mistake.

“I’ll have Steve give you some literature.”  Azniv’s phone buzzed and she glanced at a text.  She tapped at the screen delicately with a claw-tipped finger.  “Gotta go,” she said.  “Hitoshi?”

He scraped out and swallowed the last bit of ice cream and got up.  Azniv took his hand.  “See you Friday, Steve?”

“I’ll be there,” he said, and watched as they walked away.  He turned to find Loki staring after the boy, who at a gesture from his mother had flown up into the air and was keeping pace with the woman a few feet above her.

“I know who Charles Xavier is.”  Loki fixed him with an assessing expression, then glanced at the woman’s retreating figure.  “I know about his school.  And his Institute.  _The Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach_.  What they are.  Who they are for.  Your freaks and ‘muties’.  Or so they’re called by many of you.”

Steve swallowed against the angry edge in Loki’s voice.  “Professor Xavier does a lot of good.  But there’s so much more to do be done.  There’s so much cruelty in the world.  Prejudice.  Bullying.  Worse.”

“Murders?  Execution?  Lynchings?”

“Yes.  All of that.”  Steve said, disgust thick on his tongue.  “I remember people used to talk about the War to End All Wars.  And yet, war returned just a generation later.  Because there are always bullies in the world, people who think they have something to prove by hurting those weaker than them.” He looked at Loki challengingly.

Loki tilted his head.  “And still you believe in your pretty ideals despite the reality around you.  Even if it had been my choice to conquer your realm, perhaps I would have done the same.  I would have brought peace.  Every day, the slayings, the bombings, the deaths.  Every day children die, at the hands of those who should love them, or at the hands of those who seek their deaths for some superficial difference of appearance or opinion.”

Steve straightened further. “Yes.  I believe in my ideals.  I don’t deny reality.  I’ve seen every part of the horror of war.”

“And still you fight.”

“That’s why I fight.  I don’t give up on these sorts of battles.  I don’t quit.”

“You and my brother have much in common,” Loki said, the tone in his voice easing slightly.

“I would love to save everyone.  I can’t.”  Too many images of horrors he had seen raced through his mind.  He cleared his throat.  “But I save as many as I can, and work with others.  It’s good work.  Hitoshi was found, abandoned and starving on the streets.  One of his wings was broken.  He didn’t speak to anyone for months and hid in his closet whenever anyone came in.  Later, when he could speak, he told us his wing had been broken by someone he knew.”

“Discarded, like so much trash.”  Loki didn’t bother to conceal the bitterness in his voice.   

“He has a home now.  Friends.  A mother who loves him.”  Steve leaned forward.  “He used to fly in secret, when he didn’t think anyone was looking.  But then he realized it was all right.  He understood he was among people who accepted him for who he was.”

Loki’s face went blank, then Steve’s stomach twisted in dismay as Loki’s expression fractured into a thousand flashes of emotion, pain and anger and bitterness predominate.  Loki held his gaze for a long, tense moment, then he relaxed by degrees and leaned against the back of his chair. “I owe you an apology,” Loki said presently.

Steve said, startled, “For what?”

“For believing you incapable of guile.  But only you would be so obvious in your guile.”  He gestured to their sunny surroundings, to the people at nearby tables, to mothers and children walking along the pathway.  “Your intended destination.  When you suggested going to this menagerie, I thought it no different from the museums and sports arenas you have mentioned we could visit.  Something we could do to pass the time between our tasks.”  He huffed a little laugh.  “Subtlety is not your forte.”

“No.  It’s not.”

“You led her to believe I am a mutant.”

“Yes.  I did.”

“If you wish to say something to me say it plainly.”  Loki’s smile was deliberately casual, but Steve saw the way his hands had clenched.  “You have no skill at lying or deception.”

“I’m sorry.  I was trying not to lecture you.  I just wanted to show you how other people live.” 

“I have seen much of how your people live.”  He settled back, making a show of deliberately relaxing.  “There are those in your realm who do not call the mutants ‘people.’”

“They are.  Just like me.  Just like you.”

Loki laughed.  “Oh, soldier.  You do believe such nonsense.”  He leaned forward, eyes glittering.  “They are different from you.  You and Banner are chemical creations.  Their difference is inborn.”  He gestured, and suddenly a glittering composition filled the air, intertwined colored strands forming complicated connections.  “This is you, and all others you call human.” 

Another gesture, a slightly different pattern.  “This is Hitoshi.”  Again, a gesture, a slightly altered pattern.  “This is Azniv.”  A bitter smile.  “And this…”- a radically different pattern - “This is Thor and all those of Asgard.  And this,” – another pattern, wildly different from the last  – “is the Jotnar.”  He leaned back in an affectedly nonchalant pose, but his eyes were like ice.  “Say what you have to say.”

Steve swallowed hard.  “I’ve been working with Azniv and others at their branch of the Xavier Institute for awhile now.  Their mission is worldwide:  to rescue mutant children.  Give them a home.  Give them love.  Give them a place where they can be themselves.”  The hardness in Loki’s eyes hadn’t altered, but Steve warmed to his topic nevertheless.  “We have rescued children from every inhabited continent.  And I’ve seen them blossom, seen them recover from the damage they’ve been subjected to.  I’ve seen them become comfortable with who they were.  And I was thinking, perhaps, you could see something of yourself in them.”

Loki’s eyes grew even harder.  “When did you decide to make me your project, soldier?”

Very aware of the minefield he had deliberately walked onto, Steve forged ahead.  “I wanted to help you.  I thought that if you could meet and talk with Azniv and some of her friends and associates, hearing their stories, that it might help you find a place in our world.  That you might be willing to learn to be comfortable with all your abilities, such as your ability to change into another form.”

Loki was staring at him with sheer disbelief and utter contempt.  His hands clenched; his jaw tightened.  “Did I ask for your help?” he hissed.

Steve didn’t flinch.  “No.  But neither did a lot of the children.  They didn’t know help was available.  They didn’t know what it involved.”

“But they are each one of a kind.  Each wildly gifted, loathed or envied, like all exceptional beings.  But I am NOT one of a kind.”  His voice trailed off on a bitter note.  “Thor had no right to speak to any of you of this.  Stark has plagued me endlessly since my return for details of spells of transformation.  I do not wish to speak of it, and I have made that quite clear to him, but fool that he is, he just keeps talking.”

“Thor wanted us to understand.  He regrets everything he ever said or did to you that caused you pain.”

“He told you that as well?”  Loki abruptly stood.  “How easy for him, of golden Asgard, to say such things now.  But did he tell you I am the enemy?  Not for my deeds alone but for what I AM.  And I am one of many.  Monsters all.  Flawed inferior beings.  Monsters who sought to enslave your earth, not that long ago.”

“I would never have blamed all of your people for what a few did, any more than I blamed all Germans for what Hitler and the Nazis did.  There’s no such thing as an entire race of monsters, no such thing as any group that is all flawed, inferior.”  Steve paused, then added, “You know where Thor is now, don’t you?”

He waited for Loki to respond.  He knew Thor was spending some time on Jotunheim, having gone in the company of Asgardian ambassadors to work on the terms of an alliance to prepare for war against the coming enemy.  Thor had agreed to make reparations as payment for the consequences of what he had done.

Loki didn’t answer, but it was clear from the dark expression in his eyes that he knew exactly where Thor was.  His fingers twitched.  He clenched his fists and abruptly walked away. 

Steve rushed to catch up as Loki’s long strides took him along the zoo’s walkways, seemingly heedless of the price in pain he would have to pay if he tried to pass the limits of how close he needed to stay near Steve while outdoors.  He caught up with Loki and kept pace as they hurried past tourists and teachers and parents and children, back to where the huge white bears swam in the artificial lake in their enclosure.  He stopped just as quickly as when he’d left their table, and stared in the direction of the bears, his gaze very much further away. 

Steve paused just next to him and watched Loki’s face in profile, the sunlight highlighting the tension in the carved perfection of cheek and jawline.  Somehow full daylight made him look paler, like something bleached by the sun.  Nearly salt-white, less human, like a god carved from marble.

“I understand the bounds of my cage,” Loki said, not looking at him.  Then Loki turned, to face him, impossibly swiftly, his green eyes glittering with rage and pain.  “Is it a curiosity, for you?  A desire to see the monster as he is?”

“No – “ Steve began.  Loki grinned, but the teeth the smile revealed had grown sharper and the nails on the icy hand that grabbed him had turned black.

Steve sucked in a startled breath and then everything around him turned dark and airless.  There was a sensation of rushing, of falling, of every part of his body being yanked in different directions.  Panicked, he tried to breathe and freezing air hit his lungs and skin with a blast so cold he jerked, squeezed his eyes shut, choked and coughed and struggled to breathe. 

His fingers and palms were freezing.  He realized he’d fallen to his hands and knees.  He managed to open his eyes but all he saw was white.

Ice.  Snow.  He whipped his head around, left, right, but everything was white.  Everywhere.  As far as he could see.  Had he been ejected from the plane?  Heart juddering in his chest, he heard himself make a panicked sound.  There were legs in front of him, and then a blue hand reaching to him and he tried to focus but –

The plane was falling , the ground approaching, and an iron band squeezed his chest, so familiar, the wheezing in his ears, asthma attack! struggling for breath! hold on hold on, Peggy’s voice in his ears – everywhere approaching white – white – white – can’t breathe – can’t brea—

* * * * *

His eyes opened just a slit.  A blue hand withdrew from his face.  He was lying on something soft, but he was shivering, shaking uncontrollably.  Someone said something soothing, something comforting in his ear, but he couldn’t make out the words.  Heart beating so fast, breathing out of control.  Someone drew a blanket over him.  Someone was stroking his hair, speaking to him, calm quiet words of rest and safety and peace.  The long-fingered hand, when it gently touched his face again, was now pale.  He tried to concentrate on the words, which urged him to breathe slowly, calmly, to quiet his mind and heart.  Somehow his body followed the instructions, and when he was told to listen to the silence, close his eyes and sleep, he did.


	4. A Ride in the Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The door swung slowly open. The lights were low. Loki was seated at the far end of the living room in an armchair, hands resting on the arms. His eyes glittered in the low light. “You come to see the monster.” There was something horribly broken in his smile. “The beast pacing the limits of its cage.”

Steve hit the punching bag hard.  Again.  Again.  AGAIN.

And when it split apart he set it to the side, hung up a third one, and began again.

The hair stood up on the back of his neck and he whirled around.

Loki was standing there staring at him. 

Steve stepped back, his fists still up.  Loki hadn’t been there a second ago, but now he was standing nonchalantly a few feet away.  Loki looked at Steve’s hands assessingly.

“Your hands heal quickly.”

Steve glanced down, saw his knuckles were bleeding, looked back up, realizing an instant later this meant Loki had seen him do this before.  He remembered all the times he had hit multiple punching bags long and hard, bloodying his hands, destroying the bags, losing himself in the violence that eventually exhausted him to the point that the memories went away.  If only for a short time.  Rage flared.   “Are you spying on me?”

“No more than you lot spy on me.”  Loki smirked, wearing that smug superior expression he so often had when viewing ‘inferior mortals.’ 

The tone of that condescending voice hit Steve like a blow and something snapped.  The feel of those frigid fingers on his wrist – that airless trip through God knows what – the white – couldn’t breathe –  the white – COULDN’T BREATHE – the WHITE.  “You SON OF A BITCH!”  He launched himself forward and crashed his bloody fist into Loki’s jaw in a roundhouse punch.

Loki staggered backwards and held up his hands defensively.  Steve advanced, and Loki began a hand gesture – then reeled back, face contorting in pain.  He collapsed to the floor, clamped his hands to his head, fingers digging into his scalp, and Steve, heart racing, realized the spell had kicked in.

The spell that caused Loki agonizing pain if he should ever intend to do violence to another.

A sudden wash of shame hit him.  He’d just attacked someone who couldn’t fight back.  Just like a bully.

A bully.  Sickness gripped his stomach and he took a step back.  “It’s OK. OK,” he said, keeping his hands at his sides.

Loki stared up at him, face ashen, expression furious, bitter.  “Were I in Asgard, I would demand holmgang for your words against my mother.”  He made a harsh broken-glass sound.  “I cannot even ask for honor satisfied, it seems.” 

“Wha—“ Steve started, confused by the word Loki used, but hard on that came the realization of exactly what he had just said.  “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean – ”

But Loki was gone.

Steve sat heavily down on the floor and stared blankly at the empty gym.  Something twisted in his belly.  He’d attacked a defenseless man.  He’d used the worst insult he could think of, and it had come so easily to his lips. 

And he remembered a gentle hand stroking his hair.  A soft voice assuring him he was safe.

Finally – he didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there – he got up.  And went upstairs to Loki’s apartment.

He knocked on the door.  No answer.

He tried again.  No answer.

“I’d like to apologize,” he said to the door.  “I was wrong.”

No answer.

He stood there for several more minutes, then finally turned away.  He made sure to ask JARVIS, once he was out of earshot, to confirm Loki’s location, and was assured he was inside his apartment.

He thought about going back to the gym and destroying more punching bags.  But the idea made him queasy, and in the end he went out, got on his motorcycle, and headed out of the city up into Westchester County. 

It was greener there.  Quieter.  He needed time and peaceful surroundings to think about things.  He needed to do that, and he wasn’t going to chicken out.

He stopped in the early afternoon at a café with an outdoor patio.  He was grateful there were few other customers.  There, surrounded by greenery and the sound of a nearby stream, he got out his drawing pad.  The first lines were hesitant and he had to pause and clench his fists, now completely healed from the pounding he’d given them earlier.  Ragged slashes of memories raced through his mind.  He squeezed his eyes shut, in imagination beating the crap out of a punching bag. 

Then he opened his eyes and began to draw again, sure swift strokes that flowed on the paper, not even noticing, until much later, that his food and drink had arrived.  Closing the drawing pad, he stowed it in his carrier bag and ate his lunch.  He thanked the waitress when she returned.  He left her a large tip, then headed back to his motorcycle.

 

Several hours later he returned to the Tower.  After learning from JARVIS that Loki was still inside his apartment, Steve went back to Loki’s door, drawing pad under his arm.  He knocked at the door.  “I’m very sorry.  Please.  I’d like to apologize.  I was wrong.”

The door swung slowly open.  The lights were low.  Loki was seated at the far end of the living room in an armchair, hands resting on the arms.  His eyes glittered in the low light.  “You come to see the monster.”  There was something horribly broken in his smile.  “The beast pacing the limits of its cage.”

Steve stepped forward, then stopped, still a few feet away.  He set the pad down on a nearby table.

Loki remained still, head tilted up and to the side.  His hands tightened on the arms of his chair, and for a brief instant Steve saw the flare of rage in his eyes, then a downward sweep of eyelashes and his expression smoothed to blankness.

“If Thor were here I’d ask him how to properly apologize to you,” Steve began.  “I am so ashamed of myself for saying such a thing.  It was a – “ he hesitated and found the word “ – dishonorable thing for me to do.”  He stopped talking, kept his mouth shut under the weight of Loki’s still and watchful gaze.

Loki shifted in his chair.  “It was indeed dishonorable,” he said.  “Do even _Midgardians_ take the saying of such lightly?”

“No,” Steve said.  “They don’t.  Or shouldn’t.  It was a vile thing to say.”  He’d never really thought about it before; it was something guys said all the time in the army, or back in the neighborhood, though such words were never used around ladies.   But that long ride had made him realize how many insults revolved around horrible things said about someone’s mother, and the implications had become clear.

Loki made a sound that couldn’t be interpreted as a laugh.  “Perhaps you spoke truth.”  He leaned forward, and a chill ran across Steve’s skin at the ravaged look in Loki’s eyes, “I know not my birth mother, save that she was a monster.  Laufey’s bitch, and I their get.”

Horrified, Steve took a half step forward.  “If you don’t know her, how do you know what kind of person she was?”

Loki laughed, looking away.  “A monster born of monsters.”  Loki’s jaw tightened.

“You’re a _person._   She is – “ _was?_ he wondered, but didn’t ask  “– a  person,” Steve said firmly.  “Someone you don’t even know.  There was a war going on.  And you’ve heard nothing but propaganda about that war.  There’s no reason to think any of your people are monsters.  Not without knowing what they’ve done.  Each, individually.  Not as a group.  Each person.  Not until you hear their side of the story.”  When Loki didn’t respond, he went on, “Loki…  I saw so many orphaned children in the war.  I saw mothers, torn from their children. How do you know that didn’t happen to you?”

Loki sprang to his feet so quickly that Steve stepped back.  Loki stalked around Steve in a circle, his gaze that of a thwarted predator.  Steve rotated with him.  “Is this part of my punishment?  Listening to you prate about things of which you know nothing?”

“Then tell me.  I want to know.  Do you know anything at all about your people – “ Loki sneered, halting in front of him, looming over him,  “ – other than what you’ve been told on Asgard?”

“I know of the power that was once theirs.”  The shadow of some other emotion crossed his face.  Steve didn’t know how to interpret it.  It almost looked like regret.  But for what?

“Is there any way you can learn more about them?  From their point of view?  Perhaps you can visit – “

Loki made a broken sound and turned away.  A moment later he spoke in a low voice.  “I would not be welcome on their world.  They accept Thor on their world to atone for his crimes.  Thor, golden son of Asgard’s king, may ask for forgiveness.  But they will **_never_** forgive the crime I committed against them.  Even if I had not done…”  His voice broke off, then continued in a ragged whisper.  “My own father, their king, found me unworthy.  No, I can never go there.”

There was such a twisted knot of anger and pain and disgust and self-loathing in Loki’s voice, in the downward tilt of his head, in the tense set of his body, in the way his hands clenched at his sides, that Steve knew better than to respond.

Loki remained silent and still for a long moment.  Steve thought of approaching that turned back, trying to figure out some way to offer comfort.  He took half a step forward, but Loki moved at the same time.  Still not looking toward Steve he turned to stare at the opposite wall where the painting he had purchased was now on display.

When he finally turned to Steve he gave him a wholly false bright smile.  “You wish to see into my heart.  I wish to see into yours.”  He gestured to the painting.  “What do you think of it?”

Steve stepped closer to the painting, looking at the violent conflicting colors, the way the clearer, purer colors were allowed to shine free in places, and then were sullied, undercut, or overlaid by darker muddier shades.  The sheer tactile quality of the thing both invited and repelled touch.  “It’s disturbing.  It makes me want to look at things inside myself I don’t want to see.  The thing is, I didn’t know I didn’t want to see them.”  He shrugged. “There are things about myself I didn’t want to admit.”

“Ahhhh,” Loki said, and Steve belatedly remembered how skilled he was at using another’s words against them.  Knew how skilled Loki was in looking for vulnerable spots, just like he did on the helicarrier.  “And what do you not want to admit?”

He turned around, squared his shoulders, and met Loki’s gaze.  “Memories.  Nightmares.  Trying not to give up hope.  Sometimes I feel like running.”  Loki had his head tilted.  His expression of intense interest in Steve’s words overlay the undisguised cunning beneath, the searching out of weakness.  Steve drew in a breath and went on.  “I woke up in a world that baffled me – still baffles me.   I woke up and found I had… lost everyone.  Everything.”  He swallowed against his pain.  “But one thing hasn’t changed.  I’m still expected to be a role model.”

“Our roles in life always invite expectation,” Loki commented, and Steve saw it, the shift in his expression, the arrogance of one who has always been above others but has been forced to play a role to remain so.

When Loki didn’t continue, when he let the silence lengthen, Steve spoke into the gap.  “And sometimes…  sometimes I wake up, and I don’t want to be that person.  Don’t know if I’ll ever fit in here.  And I hate it that people expect perfection, that eyes are on me all the time, and knowing some people are waiting for me to stumble.  To fail.  Just as I did with you.  Because I failed.  I became someone I hate.  By attacking someone who couldn’t fight back.  By being a bully.”  His voice lowered to a near whisper. 

There was a glint of surprise in Loki’s eyes.  Steve grabbed his drawing pad, opened it to the piece he had done earlier in the day.  He handed it to Loki, then stood there, waiting.

Loki looked at him speculatively, then turned his attention to the drawing.  Steve watched Loki’s face as it turned intent, then curious, then quiet, then sad, then somehow empty.  At this angle he couldn’t see the piece.  Didn’t need to see it.  Knew every savage line he had drawn of his self-portrait; his face filled with anguish while all around him were ruined buildings and bodies on battlefields, rows of gravestones, and to the side, a row of portraits, top to bottom, of Peggy and Bucky, of Dum Dum and Happy Sam and Pinky, of Gabe and Jacques, and of Jim and James and Junior.  All of it surrounded by black clouds, and images of bullets and shrapnel.

Loki closed the drawing pad.  His body, as tense and taut as a drawn bowstring, relaxed.  Still holding the drawing pad, he sat down on the couch opposite the painting.  After a moment Steve took the chair across from him.

Loki met his eyes.  “I have never known one such as you.  I do not understand you.  You admit to weakness and are not shamed.  You admit to weakness and make it seem like strength.  You know weakness and you know strength.  That is what is different about you.  You find honor in both.  All else I know despise weakness in themselves, view it as shame, see it in others as an excuse to attack and destroy.” 

“I did attack you.  It took me a while to remember what you did for me.”  Steve had felt as if he’d dreamed it – that gentle touch, that soothing voice.  He hadn’t connected it to Loki, at first; his mind not accepting the fact that the being who had taken him on that terrifying trip had understood enough of the consequences to offer recompense and comfort.

“After what I did to you?”  Loki lifted his brows.  “Though, in truth, I had not intended what I did as a weapon.  I was complying with your request - to show you the **_thing_** that lies beneath my skin.  I did not think the cold would cause you harm.  You are no ordinary mortal.  I had not realized you were susceptible to other wounds.”

“So that’s how you did it,” Steve said after a moment.  “I was wondering why the spell didn’t prevent this.  Where _did_ you take me?”

“On an ice island far north of here.  I found it easier to comply with the terms of your request there.”

“It wasn’t an order,” Steve said mildly.

“I didn’t think it was.  I also didn’t think you knew what you were asking.  I thought, once you saw the face of the monster, you would not plague me about this again.  Instead…  You never even looked.”

“No.”  Steve fought off the sensation of white – WHITE.  “No.”  He looked up.  “Don’t use such dramatic ways of responding to any requests I make in the future.”

Loki was still staring at him.  “You collapsed to the ground – you couldn’t breathe.  I took you back immediately.”  He paused again.  “In Asgard, there is a name for such as you experienced.  The memories that crash over you, destroying present reality.  It is called the Chains of Battle.”  He went silent, his gaze shuttered, and Steve knew, with a sudden cold chill, that Loki was speaking from personal experience.  “It is considered a vile weakness.”  His words were bitten off.  “Do they consider it such here?”

“It’s called shell shock.  No, I guess the name now is PTSD.  And yes.  A lot of people consider it a weakness.  But that’s getting better, now.  Or so I’m told.”  Loki gave him a skeptical look, and Steve took in a deep breath, remembering anew the freedom to do so, to be able to breathe without fear of an asthma attack.

“I have seen the images of you, before the potions transformed you into who you are now.  The body of a boy.  The mind of a man.  The courage of a great hero.”

“I only ever wanted to do what was right.  To do some good in the world.  To protect people.”

“And yet you take no joy in the battle.  I have observed that.”

“I’d much rather there were no more wars to fight.”

“And what would you do then?”

Steve didn’t have to consider it.  “Draw.  Paint.  Explore the world.”  He’d made plans to do all of this, back before Thor returned and warned them of the even greater dangers they were all facing.  “Go back to Europe, see what it is like now.  All I saw was devastation and death.  I’ve seen the pictures and movies of what it’s like now.  I’d like to go there, without being recognized, and see it for myself.”

Loki’s expression changed again, to one of surprise. “You are an honorable man.  Perhaps the only one I have ever met.  For you are honorable both in ways Asgard knows and in ways they do not.” 

Loki was staring at the painting again.  Steve knew he was walking on dangerous ground, but opened his mouth and said it.  “I looked up the meaning of the title of the painting.  Góra Lodowa.  Iceberg.”  When Loki said nothing, he went on.  “It took me a minute to figure out why the artist picked that name.  It’s about what’s under the surface.”

Loki turned suddenly, eyes glittering.  “You still wish to see _under the surface.”_

Steve stood tall against the blatant menace in Loki’s gaze.  Menace.  And pain.

He stepped forward, reached out a hand.  “That is your decision.” 

“Of course it is,” Loki sneered, ignoring his hand.  “As so much else as been _my decision._ ”  He suddenly laughed, a brief huff of air, and waved a hand.  Suddenly the air was filled with a three dimensional tangle of color that seemed to branch off in all directions to an invisible infinity.

“What is that?” Steve asked, awed by its beauty and complexity.  “What lies beneath the surface of another being?  Like you showed me before?”

“Yes, but not the same.  Before, I showed you the physical structure.  This is the structure of magic.  Energy.  Power.  Call it what you will.  It lives in all of us, but few can see, fewer can master.”  He gestured to the painting.  “I see many things in that painting.  This is one.  A vision hidden to most eyes.  Always apparent to mine.  I learned early on I could see much more than others.  Only a few saw what I did.  My mother for one.  The mother who took me in,” he added in a lower tone as he dispelled the image.  “It is a gift, she told me.  A part of me.  It is still hard for me to believe she is not my own mother.  Not when we could perceive this reality so clearly while others could not.”  His voice broke, a bit, on the last words.

“She is your mother in every way that counts.”

“So she has said.”  Loki went silent, his gaze far away.  “And I cannot doubt that she believes what she said.”  He curled up the fingers of one hand, relaxed them again.  “You have a gift.  You and Thor.  There is right, there is wrong.  Different definitions at different times.  It must be a joy, to see only the surface and not the depth.”

“You know I’m not that simple.”

Loki picked up Steve’s drawing.  “No.  You’re not.  Art is its own type of magic.” 

“You never answered my question.  How does this painting make you feel?”

Loki glanced at him, then dark lashes swept down to shutter green eyes.  “Recognized.”  He began pacing around the room again, voice low, words hurried, as if he were regretting saying them the minute they left his lips.  “When it happened.  When I – My mind was tangled.  I looked at my skin and saw – I made plans.  I told myself, good plans.  I would fix everything.  It wouldn’t have happened.  But that – didn’t work.  And – there was darkness.  I wanted it.  I wanted everything to go dark.  And yet there was still light.  I made no decision, I did not struggle.  Neither was possible to me.  It was not a path I chose.  The path seized me, and swept me on.  Of all of Yggrasil’s branches and paths, it took me to….”  He stopped speaking, stopped walking, clenched his fists.  He was breathing harshly, quickly, and Steve took a step closer.

“Can I help?” Steve asked in a very low tone.

Loki made a pained noise and sketched a ghastly smile.

“You helped me,” Steve said insistently.  “Your voice, your touch.  You pulled me back.”  Loki’s face was creased with lines of pain.  “I mean it.  Thank you.  If I can help you, let me.”  When Loki remained silent, his face showing disbelief, Steve went on.  “It made a difference, knowing someone was there, helping me.”

“Even if I were the cause?”

“The cause happened a long time ago.”

“A scant handful of years.”

“But your cause...”  Steve blew out a breath.  “Just a year or so ago.”

Loki shook his head, then nodded.  He drew in a deep breath.  Another.  He turned to the painting again, and spoke to it, and not to Steve, who had moved to stand by his side.  “Some things I cannot remember.  Some I can too well.  Some things I thought were real were not.  Even when I remembered them in precise detail.”  He drew in a deep breath.  “Thor threw me from the Bifrost.”  Steve tensed, shocked.  “But he did not.  I know that now.  But – while **_there_** – I knew it.  I knew he had done it.  And then – with the Healers – I remembered how I – how I fell.  I remembered **_both_** in the same specific detail.  They gave me potions to calm my mind; they cast spells to help me know what was real.  And what was not.  Slowly, what was not faded and became a construct.  I could see the structure and sense the mind behind it that placed it there.  But they were not able to bespell **_that_** away.  That mind.  That **_voice._   **And every time – “ he whirled on Steve – “ ** _every time_** I stay with Fury’s people it all comes **_back again_**.  So,” he made a theatrical gesture, “my jests.  A bit of fun before the war.  Before we all die.”

The silence felt leaden, the sense of approaching menace palpable and near.

“We can win this.”  Steve held Loki’s gaze.  “You have allies.  You are helping us.  Let us help you.  I won’t give up on this battle.”

“More fool you.”  Loki’s expression hardened.  “You mortals once worshipped us as gods and made up stories about us.  Have you ever wondered if the gods have gods?”

Despite the returned warmth in the room, a chill raced across Steve’s skin. 

“It’s about power,” Loki went on.  “The power to destroy, at a gesture.  If **_he_** succeeds in his plan to gain this power we – all of us in the nine realms – are the ants in the pathway before **_his_** boot.”

“Have you ever seen how much a tiny ant can carry?  Put enough of us together, and we can carry a very heavy load.”

Loki looked at him.  Then laughed.  And if there was a slight tinge of hysteria to his laugh, Steve didn’t care.  He joined in.

“Ah, soldier,” Loki finally said, laugh lines crinkling around his eyes.  He shook his head, and glanced at the painting one more time.  He turned back and held Steve’s gaze for a long moment.  Then he drew in a deep breath, and suddenly looked tired.  “So you wish to see what lies beneath.  Very well.”

“What – “ Steve started, then shivered.  The temperature in the room had sudden dropped in just those few seconds and was getting colder still.

Loki stood in front of him, eyes hooded.  “See what you have desired to see.  Mortals always seem to take pleasure in viewing monsters.  Preferably caged.” 

“You’re not a monster.  And you won’t always be caged.”

Loki just shook his head, then stood very still.  The room grew colder yet, and a tracery of frost ran across the floor and walls.  Steve watched, transfixed, as a sea of blue ran across Loki’s skin, followed by an intricate network of raised lines. 

“Go ahead.  Assuage your curiosity.” Loki lifted his chin proudly, his voice dripping arrogance and condescension, but Steve heard the uncertainty beneath.

Loki’s face and hair remained the same, entirely recognizable, just as if he were looking at a photo through a color filter.   But the eyes…

Red eyes, just like he’d been told, yet the reality of it was still shocking.  Steve fought against the uncanny feeling that was threatening to overcome him.  Some mutants he had met had yellow eyes, some animal eyes, the iris and pupil all that was visible, no white at all.   He’d never seen red.  That was different.  But that was all right.

Steve didn’t drop his gaze, but wrapped his arms around himself against the cold.   “I wasn’t doing this for my curiosity.  I was hoping to help you.”

“Yes.  So you said. I do believe you.”  Loki gave him an amused smile.  “You are a terrible liar, so I know you speak true.”

Then he stared down at his own hands.  Grief and loss raced across his face before he masked his expression again.  “Well.  You have seen.”

Steve nodded.  “You’re still you.”

Loki’s mouth twisted.  “And you are a fool.”  The markings and the blue washed off Loki’s skin, returning it to its usual pallor.  A rush of heat followed as the room returned to its original temperature.

“Would you be willing to just try it?  To spend time in this form?  To get used to it?”

Loki gave a minute shake of his head.  “To be something I loathe?”  Loki glanced back at the painting, and for an instant all his face showed was that of someone lost, with no idea where to turn.

“So you’re going to let Asgard’s prejudices win?  Haven’t I heard you say how dull and stupid most of them are?  What makes you think they know anything at all about what your people are like?  Why would you care about their opinions?”  Loki’s gaze snapped back to his, full of fury, but Steve didn’t budge.  “Has it ever occurred to you, in the coming fight, we need all the weapons and resources we can get?  Are there tools and abilities you can use as a Jotunn that you can’t use as an Asgardian?  Doesn’t it make sense to you, to use every resource we have?  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to explore these possibilities?”

The anger was still there, but Steve now saw it wasn’t directed at him.   “You have no true conception of what is waiting for us,” Loki said, his voice in a lower register, and Steve could detect the fear that lay behind it.

“No.  I don’t.  How could I?  But we will fight.”

The light in Loki’s eyes sharpened, and Steve identified it at last:  the need for revenge.  “Spoken as a true soldier.  I had not considered the tactical advantages.” 

“I won’t give up.”

Loki’s gaze had gone sharp and hardened into pure hate.  “Neither will I.” 

 


	5. Quid Pro Quo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...

It was several days before they had a chance to take some time off again.  Building projects occupied most of their time but just as they’d been about to head out on a Saturday there was an incursion of giant ants crawling up from some underground laboratory, their hapless creator later discovered killed by his own creation.  The ants had swarmed over several buildings but it hadn’t taken even fifteen minutes, between Tony’s repulsors and Loki’s magic, to get rid of them.  Loki had made sure to comment on the irony of facing this specific type of foe to Steve after the fight was over.

Steve had been pleased when Loki had spent the last few minutes in his Jötunn form, dressed in black leather with silver accents, sending controlled waves of ice up the Chrysler Building, freezing the remaining ants solid.  They’d clung, immobile, to the sides for a few more seconds like some weird kind of sculpture, before dropping and shattering on the sidewalk.

Scott Lang had been late for the party, but he stayed for the victory celebration anyway.  Clint had shown up and taken out quite a few of the ants with explosive arrows.  He’d condescended to come back to the Tower afterwards, but kept a close eye on Loki.

“So, awesome use of ice.” Tony lifted a glass.  “I’m going to put the vid of you shapeshifting on repeat.  Now that you’ve outed yourself, how about sharing your trade secrets?”

Loki smirked, lifting a glass of his own.  “Your puny mortal mind could not possibly comprehend the sorcery involved.”

Stark responded to the insult with a grin.  “Try me.  And while we’re at it, do you have any more hidden abilities?  I gotta say, Snape, that was awesome.”

“So kind of you to say, Munchkin,” Loki retorted.

“Voldemort.”  Tony stuck his chin out.

“Fun Size,” Loki returned with a leer.

“Hey, good things come in small packages,” Tony replied good-humoredly.  “Smurf.”

“Shrimp,” Loki returned cheerfully, eyes gleaming.

Lang began laughing.  “You guys are killing me.”  The two of them turned to look at him.  He lifted a slice of pizza in acknowledgement.

Tony’s gaze brightened.  “How about letting me have a look at that suit?”

“Uh?”  Lang pretended to consider.  “No.” 

Tony strolled toward Lang.  “Where’s Pym hiding out, Creepy-Crawly? I really want to pick his brains...”

Steve smiled at Loki, whose face had lost its humor when Tony turned away and he had discovered Clint staring at him, with an expression of guarded suspicion.  Loki immediately responded with an unsettling grin.

“Hey,” Steve said to Loki, touching his arm, “Still want to go out?  I was ready for a long battle, and this one fizzled out.  I’d like to clear my head.”

“I would, as well,” Loki said, deliberately turning his back on Clint.  They headed toward the elevator.

“So,” Steve said, as they exited out the front door of Stark Tower.  As usual after a battle a horde of reporters had joined the usual groupies outside the perimeter of Stark’s security but none of them noticed Steve and Loki as they walked through the crowd.  A blonde woman was smiling into a camera and breathlessly speculating about the “New Blue Avenger”.

Loki rolled his eyes.  They continued down the street, leaving the crowd behind them.

“Where would you like to go?” Steve asked.

Loki hummed and began strolling towards Columbus Circle.  His face appeared pensive.

“Thank you for what you did,” Steve said. 

Loki glanced in his direction but said nothing.

“I know how hard it was for you to do this,” Steve persisted, a bit worried about Loki’s mood. 

Loki waved a hand dismissively and kept walking. 

“Do you think this is something you might want to explore further?” Steve ventured.  “Or would you rather I just shut up now?”

This time when Loki looked at him his lips were quirked in an indulgent smile.  “It felt odd,” Loki admitted.  “And very hot.”

Steve hadn’t considered that.  “Is it safe for you to be in earth’s climate?” he asked, concerned.  “Aside from snowy areas?”  He followed Loki as he crossed over into Central Park. 

“I cast a minor spell to compensate for the difference in temperature,” Loki explained, pausing for a moment to look at a four story tall pylon surrounded at ground level by white statues attached to projections at its base.  Several tourists were seated by the fountain in the front.  The bronze statues at the top gleamed in the sun.

“It’s a war memorial dedicated to sailors who died on a ship called the Maine,” Steve explained.  “It was built before I was born.”

“In Asgard, it would have been clad completely in gold.”  Loki started walking along a tree-lined pathway.  “The impulse is the same, in Asgard and Midgard alike, it seems.  Memorialize war.  Prepare for the next one.  Enemies always await.”

Loki’s voice had taken a bitter tone again, and Steve reverted to a previous subject.  “I’m glad you had a solution to the temperature problem.” Steve said, still thinking about the logistics involved in alien beings adapting to other planets.

“If Stark were with me now he would be asking me how I did it.”  Loki glanced at Steve.  “You, however, thought of my safety.”

“Yes,” Steve said.  “I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I’d had any idea it could be dangerous for you.”

Loki didn’t respond.  He kept on walking at a leisurely pace along the pathway, his expression contemplative.  They’d gone some distance before he spoke again.  “Tell me what this place was like,” he said, “when you were a child.”

“I grew up in Brooklyn,” Steve said.  “We didn’t come to Manhattan often.  But I did visit Central Park…”  He began talking, of what it was like then, of when he and Bucky had ridden into the city and explored part of the park.   He looked for better memories, rather than describing the privations of life back then, and for awhile lost himself in the fun they’d had that day, when they’d had just enough money to take the train, and buy a couple of Cokes and hot dogs as well.

Loki listened with interest and asked a few questions.  Steve kept talking, then suddenly slowed down in surprise.

He’d never expected Loki to take them to the Zoo, but here they were.  Loki paid for admission and headed to the polar bear exhibit.  Steve went along with him, tamping down on the threads of concern and suspicion that kept trying to rise up in his mind. 

The polar bears were swimming in the artificial lake when they arrived.

Loki looked at them admiringly.  “For such puny beasts, they are magnificent.  Would you like to see them in their natural habitat?”

“No.”  Steve gave Loki a hard stare. 

Loki smirked.  “I wasn’t suggesting a visit.”  He flicked one finger, and Steve gasped as the view in front of him expanded and changed.  He grabbed the rail in front of the enclosure so tightly that when he looked later he could see the indentation marks his fingers had left.

An expanse of white snow, broken here and there by patches of dark water, stretched before him, yet he could feel the sun hot on his head and back.  He could hear the voices of tourists, could see in his peripheral vision a woman in a bright yellow sun hat also holding on to the rail, chattering something to the child next to her.

The bears were moving across a vast landscape, pacing along a river winding like a grey-blue snake through the endless white.  He turned and grabbed Loki’s arm, seeing beyond him tourists and trees and concrete pathways, but when he turned back to the bears they were crossing a narrow ice bridge onto an island of ice, part of a patchwork of ice floes surrounded by water.

“What have you done?”

“Given them back their home.  They now live there, while all here see their illusion.”

“And what about their keepers?”

Loki gave an amused shrug.  “Perhaps they have been bespelled to think they are doing their jobs.” 

Steve knew he ought to disapprove – but the sight of those fierce wild animals in their natural habitat brought to mind what he’d recently read about them.  He now knew these animals were imperiled – and, like the buffalo before them, were in danger of dying out completely.  He’d been appalled and knew that he would need to take some kind of action for their cause, once he learned more. “Can you do this for the rest of them?” Steve wondered. 

“Wouldn’t you have a rule against that?” 

“No.” 

Loki laughed, and a minute later Steve did too. 

“I just want to do what’s right.”  Steve gazed at the bears at home in their icy wilderness, and felt something calm inside him.

 

Later, at the same outdoor café – Loki let him actually drink his 7-Up this time – Steve had just started on his second burger when Loki pulled out his Starkphone and began tapping rapidly.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked.

“Reading about the Xavier Institute’s grand re-opening.”  Loki looked up, with that false brightness back in his eyes.  “If you want me to attend this event you will need to discuss my schedule with Nick.”

“Nick?”  Steve had never once heard anyone refer to the SHIELD Director that way, not even Tony Stark, who, granted, had other nicknames for him, Cyclops being the least offensive.

Loki smirked.  “He hates it when I call him that.”

Steve laughed out loud.

“One other thing,” Loki said.  “A condition, as it were.  If you want me to go to their grand-reopening, you’ll need to do something for me.”  He smiled at Steve’s expression.  “Obviously I cannot violate any of the restrictions on my behavior.”

“That does leave you a lot of room,” Steve grumbled.  “OK.  What?”

“I would like to go there wearing Jotnar garb.  They will want to see the ‘Blue Avenger’ – ” he pronounced those words as if they tasted bad “ – and if I’m going to do this, I may as well do it properly.”

“An outfit like what you wore when you froze all those ants?”

“No.  That was Asgardian.”  He shook his head, bemused.  “You suggested I learn more about my heritage.  I do know what they wear.  I thought I would make a start by wearing traditional Jotnar garb to the grand re-opening.  I would like to invite you to do the same.  Yes?”  Loki’s eyes were bright and altogether too innocent.

Steve thought about it.  He could well imagine how many layers of clothing the inhabitants of an ice planet would wear.  He’d be sweltering in the summer heat but it seemed like a good gesture of solidarity and he figured it would be a small price to pay if it would help Loki along the path of self-acceptance. 

He just hoped that didn’t include anything like those heavy Asgardian capes.  He’d probably trip on it, fall flat on his face in front of the whole crowd.  “Do the Jotnar wear capes?”

“No.  That is an Asgardian affectation.”

“All right,” he said.  “Just let me know what I need to do.”

“I’ll have everything ready for you.”  He poked at his tablet some more.  “I will need to hone my skills by practicing combat with one who has similar abilities to my own.  I believe there is one among your mutants who has similar abilities.  A Mr. Drake, I believe.  Perhaps a meeting can be arranged?” 

“Mr. Drake – ah, Iceman.”

Loki made an annoyed noise.  “Has Stark had a hand in naming all your heroes?”

Steve chuckled.  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“I will discuss it with your Ms. Hayrabedian, then.”  Loki settled back, looking altogether too pleased with himself.  Steve felt a slight flare of suspicion, but decided he’d rather see that mischievous and amused look rather than the darkness that so often crossed that pale face.  He decided he’d go along with whatever Loki had in mind.

 

Once the big day arrived, Steve showed up at Loki’s suite at the arranged time.  Loki was dressed in a nice suit.  Steve looked around for any sign of the costume he was supposed to put on but there was nothing there.

“We need to start getting ready – we need to leave in about an hour.”

Loki made one single hand gesture and an incredibly odd sensation overcame Steve as suddenly his naked skin was touched by the cool air in the apartment, and then there was a heavy feeling around his neck and forearms, and something hard and cold and definitely not his boxers pressing against his groin.

He looked down in shocked surprise at the expanse of his own pale skin.  Dark metal arm guards encased his forearms.  A huge metal necklace was hanging around his neck; he caught sight of a big green-blue jewel set in the center.  His toes were digging into open sandals that had protective shin guards attached to them.

The worst thing was, he was wearing what appeared to be a fancy and very heavy leather version of the loincloths worn by jungle heroes and Indians in westerns in the movies he’d seen when he was a kid, held up by a belt so dark green it was almost black. 

Otherwise, he was totally naked.

He could feel heat rising up his entire body, particularly his face.  He must be as red as a lobster with embarrassment.

“What **_is this?”_** He demanded, looking up in shock – and there was another surprise.

Loki was dressed in a gold and green version of the same outfit, which left huge expanses of his skin visible.

His very blue skin.

His red eyes twinkled as he held out something to Steve – a horned and jeweled headpiece similar in style to the one Loki was wearing.

He gaped, then straightened and put a stern expression on his face.  “I’m waiting for an answer.”

“You agreed to wear Jotnar garb to the ‘grand re-opening’,” Loki said in a very patient tone.

“ ** _This_** is Jotnar **_clothing?_** ” He sputtered, “I thought they’d be wearing warm winter clothing – not this!  It’s barely decent!”

“Midgardians frequently wear as little,” Loki pointed out.

Steve swallowed and looked down at the expanse of his own skin.  He had imagined plenty of different scenarios, but none of them came close to this.  Then suddenly he realized the obvious answer, the key to Loki’s trick.  “What do they wear when they’re outside?”

“What you’re wearing now.”  Loki put entirely too much glee into the simple sentence.  “When they’re indoors, I understand they wear even less.  Just their sandals and ice-spider silk garments.  Perhaps a bit risqué - but if you’re feeling that adventurous, I’ll be happy to do the same.” 

Steve blinked – for an instant it was as if the air between them had rippled – then there Loki was, wearing even less than he had a second before.

Steve closed his mouth, which had fallen open.  The loincloth – previously dark and opaque – was now white, even narrower and shorter than the previous one, and clearly made of a softer material.  Though the jewelry remained, the forearm and shin guards were gone, which had the effect of making Loki look even more naked.

Steve was barely aware he was shaking his head.  Loki chuckled, and the image changed back into what Loki had been wearing a moment before.

Steve stared at him in dismay.  “You’re kidding me.  You really expect me to…”  His voice trailed off.  _Expect me to expose myself to the world.  Exactly the same thing I asked you to do._

_No.  I asked a lot more of you._

“Well, if you don’t want to – I won’t hold you to your promise.”  There was a challenge in Loki’s smile.

“OK,” Steve managed after a moment.  “I deserve this.  You just couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Now where would be the fun in that?” Laugh lines crinkled around Loki’s eyes – the same lines, Steve realized, Loki had always had – as an even wider grin spread across his face.  “Remember, you **_did_** request I spend time in this form.  So…”  He spread out his arms in a theatrical gesture.  “I’m ready to leave any time you are.”

Well, Steve reflected ruefully, at least he didn’t have to worry about tripping over a bulky cape.  And of course he should have realized Loki would find some way to get the maximum amount of enjoyment in fulfilling Steve’s request.

But so publicly.  There would be crowds of people.  Taking pictures.  There’d be so many questions to answer.  He didn’t want to even think about the entertainment Stark would get from this. 

He looked down at the horrifying expanse of his bare skin again.  How could he possibly do this?  He had an image to uphold.

Then suddenly he remembered the first time he’d stepped out on stage for a war bonds show.  Yes, that cartoony Captain America costume had left him fully covered, but he’d still felt ridiculous wearing it.  At least no one had seen him blush; the hooded mask with those silly little wings had taken care of that.  

On the other hand, the stage shows had been for a good cause. 

And, he had to admit, he did deserve this.  It was only right he be a dancing monkey for another good cause.  And if Loki was willing to so publicly show himself, how could he say no? 

He had a sudden mental image of the expression on Loki’s face after he transformed in his apartment:  proud, yet uncertain, convinced that Steve would find his Jötunn form monstrous.

“All right,” he said and gave Loki an easy smile.  Loki’s eyes widened in surprise at Steve’s warm expression.  “Let’s go.  But we’re taking one of Stark’s cars.”  He was very, very grateful that Tony was out of town again.  If he’d still been there, Steve was sure, it would take every bit of courage he had just to walk past him.

 

The sleek black fancy car pulled up to the waiting area in the underground garage.  The chauffeur got out and held the door open.  He only gave Steve and Loki one startled glance before a _“yes, after all I do work for Stark and I’ve already seen just about everything and I’m certainly not surprised by anything that happens here”_ look crossed his face.

Though it wasn’t all that far away, it still took forever to get through Manhattan traffic to the Xavier Institute.  Steve spent the trip very aware of the feel of the leather of the seat against his mostly naked skin, and the cold air on his body.  Loki, for his part, acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world, began chatting about trivia, mostly celebrity gossip about various members of the X Men.

Even though it was a private, invitation-only event, naturally the perimeter was crawling with reporters pressing against the security line.  The chauffeur maneuvered the big car into the secured area and dropped them off at the entrance to the sedate building housing the Xavier Institute. 

As soon as Loki stepped out, someone shouted, “It’s the Blue Avenger!” and a roar went up.  Steve dragged him quickly through the front door, hissing, “What happened to your ‘don’t look at me’ spell?”

Loki smirked.  “I’m just fulfilling your request.”  Steve just sighed and shook his head.

Steve led them to the main ballroom, a huge meeting area which covered most of the first floor.  He could hear by the level of noise they were among the later arrivals, and sure enough, the place was already packed.  Some people had already taken their seats, but the majority were mingling in a large open area.  The room was swarming with people, almost all mutants.   Steve recognized a startled few faces among the varied skin and hair and fur and feather colors, among the giants and the dwarfs.  He spotted Azniv at the other end of the room.  She was in an intense conversation with a circle of people, and didn’t see him at first.

A dark haired woman dressed in a tight shiny black bathing suit which contrasted nicely with the snake-scales of her skin, looked at them, then strode over, thigh-high black boots clicking on the floor.  “Why, Steve,” she purred, looking him up and down.  “I like your new look.”  He tried, and failed, not to blush but her attention had instantly turned to Loki.  “And this is the Blue Avenger.  Who’s your friend, Steve?”

“Stacy, I’d like to introduce you to Loki.”

Loki extended a hand, and she clasped it, giving him a speculative look.  “Pleased to meet you.”

“And I you,” he said, treating her to a mischievous smile. 

Several other people had turned and were viewing them with varied expressions of surprise and curiosity.  Steve battled the impulse to go in search of some clothes to put on.  He comforted himself with the observation that many of the mutants had chosen their most-favored skin-revealing outfits for the occasion.  One woman facing away from them was nearly naked – from the top of her bald head to her naked feet all that kept her from total nudity were tiny blue strings around her chest and waist, and up her rear end, revealing an expanse of pinkish-brown skin and perfectly toned muscles.  She turned, and he realized she was wearing the smallest possible version of what women these days considered bathing suits.  He suddenly recognized her as the woman from the street the other day who’d extended her arm to reach whatever it was she’d dropped into the grate.  She wasn’t wearing her turban, and she hadn’t bothered to draw in her eyebrows for this occasion; he realized she was entirely hairless.  It made sense, he realized, that she’d need to be nearly naked to use her powers.  He’d have to ask Azniv about her; he’d never seen her before the other day on the street.

She had a puzzled look on her face, trying to place him, but just then Azniv stepped in front of him. 

“Hmmm,” she said, her gaze sweeping Steve.  “When you said you’d be showing up in alien clothing I had an entirely different picture in mind.”  She turned her attention to Loki.  “Thank you for joining us.”

“I could not possibly miss such an interesting occasion,” he said.

“Steve told me a few days ago you weren’t of this world,” she said, and gave Steve an indulgent smile.  “He apologized for letting me assume you were part of our community.”

“He is a most honorable man.”  Loki gave Steve an enigmatic smile.

Hank McCoy approached, and Steve watched as Loki took in the sight of the large blue-furred man, dressed very professorially in suit, tie, and vest, his tiny rectangular glasses pushed down toward the tip of his feline nose.  Introductions were made, he expressed his pleasure at meeting Loki, then he and Azniv headed to the podium and took their places.

Speeches were made.  Dr. McCoy welcomed everyone and praised all involved in the re-opening of the Institute and gave an optimistic speech about the future of mutant-human relations.  Azniv was next, and she gave specific thanks to a long list of people for their part in the work of repairing their building.  She introduced Steve next with the highest of praise, and added that he had brought a friend with him, who would be familiar to everyone who had seen the news in the past week, Loki, who the press had nicknamed the Blue Avenger. 

Still feeling like he was some kind of exhibit on display, Steve managed to make it all the way through his enthusiastic speech without stumbling once, despite the curious gazes.  It was rough going at first, but he managed to put a lot of heart into what he was saying.  Halfway through, he realized the audience had settled down and were actually listening to his speech.  He relaxed and ended on a rousing note, honoring all the work that had been done to help young mutants and pledging to do everything in his power to help their cause.

Azniv joined him after the applause died down.  “I’d like to once again thank Loki for everything he did to ensure the work on this building was completed so quickly.”  Steve was watching Loki, and saw a grim look pass over his features and vanish again.  “Would you like to say a few words?”

Loki did, and Steve, taking his place in the seat reserved for him, felt the tiniest hint of unease about what Loki would say.  How would he feel about this?  He suspected Loki had been thinking about how this building had been destroyed, like so many others, by the Chitauri army.

He needn’t have worried.  Loki introduced himself as being from a realm similar to Thor’s, and informed the audience that Thor had personally requested that he come to earth to give whatever assistance he could to any threats their realm might face. Clearly having a wonderful time, he gave a brief and entertaining description of his culture and costume, all, Steve was positive, wholly made up.  Loki then posed for dozens of selfies.  Steve had resisted when he tried to drag him into the picture, but Loki had smirked and said in a low tone, “Just give the people what they want.”

Steve gave him a sharp look, and Loki, grinning for yet another picture, his arm tightly around Steve’s shoulders, turned for an instant and whispered into his ear, “None of the cameras see you.”

Steve squared his shoulders, and gave picture-perfect smiles for the cameras, choosing to believe Loki was speaking the truth and not pranking him again.

Finally, the long evening was over.  Ms. Hayrabedian made a closing speech, thanking everyone for their participation.  While she was still talking, Steve whispered to Loki, “Did Director Fury authorize you to reveal you’re an alien?”

Loki gave him a huge grin.  “He certainly never thought to forbid it.”  Then Azniv’s speech was over and they were surrounded by people again asking questions and taking pictures; Loki laughing and answering all their questions.  He occasionally darted a glance toward Steve.  Who gave him a big smile back.

 

Finally, it was time to leave.  Steve used his cellphone to contact the chauffeur, and a short time later got the signal the car was ready and waiting for them just outside.  Steve resolutely headed out the main entry, but the expected touch of air against naked skin didn’t happen.  He suddenly found himself fully clothed in a business suit he definitely did not own.  He tugged a bit at the tight tie.

Loki, equally nattily dressed, gave him a grin.  Steve returned the smile, and they strolled along the scrum of reporters to the waiting car as if they were invisible.  All cameras were pointed in other directions.

Only the slightest raise of eyebrows betrayed the chauffeur’s surprise at seeing them return looking entirely different than when they had first set out.

They settled into the back seat.  Steve took a soda from the drinks department.  He popped it open, and glanced at Loki, who was giving him an enigmatic look.

“What?” Steve asked.

“I didn’t think you would go through with it,” Loki admitted.

“I asked a lot more of you than you did of me.  I had no idea what I was really asking of you when I first came up with this idea.  It was only fair of me to do this for you.”

Loki’s mouth quirked.  “I realize I cannot predict how you will respond to my jests.  You might,” he added, “want to check your phone.”

Just as Steve pulled it out of his pocket it buzzed with a tone which he knew meant he had a new email.  Steve checked the message.  “A plane ticket to Paris?  Day after tomorrow?”

“You did say you wanted to see what Europe is like now.” 

Steve looked up from his phone, already considering the possibilities.  “Join me,” he said impulsively.

Loki looked genuinely surprised.  “Would you not prefer someone else?”

“No,” Steve said decisively.  “Would you like to explore Europe with me?  And Paris!  I always had this fantasy.  Pre-war, of course.”  Loki looked at him encouragingly, and he went on.  “I remember reading about artists in Paris, living in garrets, doing paintings by the Seine.”  He smiled ruefully.  “It won’t be anything like that, I’m sure.  It’s just a dream I had back when I was a boy, of wanting to be there and paint and see everything and explore.  I’m sure it’ll be very different, now.  But I’d still like to go there, to draw, maybe even to paint. And,” Steve paused, feeling almost shy, “I’d like to do your portrait.”

Loki was still looking at him disbelievingly.  Then he gave him a sly grin.  “Well, it has been many centuries since I’ve been to some parts there.” 

“Does Fury ever let you out of his ‘undisclosed location’?”

“No.  Never.  It would be interesting to see Norway again after all of these centuries.  Thor still has some altars there.  They recently discovered one in Norway in Ranheim.  Shall we leave offerings?” 

Steve felt slightly appalled.  “What would Thor think?”

“Oh, he’d start reminiscing about the good times.  All those maidens ready to worship his hammer.”  He rolled his eyes.

Steve attempted a disapproving expression, then gave up and smiled.  He studied the phone screen.  “What if something comes up and we can’t go?”

“Your ticket can be exchanged for any future date you prefer. Or, I can always take you there with my method.  I did think you would prefer an airplane.”

“Uh, yes.”  Steve repressed a shudder at the thought of that horrible experience.  “All right, let’s go.” 

A second later his phone pinged again.  He glanced at the message.  Just as he had expected, a second ticket to Paris had appeared.

Then a thought suddenly struck him.  “Exactly how are you paying for all these things?  You’ve got your own account – where are you getting the money?”

“Oh,” Loki said airily.  “I decided Nick should be paying me a salary.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t actually discussed this with him?”

“I don’t think there’s any need.  Nick has many secret stores of money he does not acknowledge, quite useful for buying silence or information or access to places and equipment or purchasing items he would prefer no one knew SHIELD has.  He surely would not mind if I chose to receive payment from one of those sources.”

“Are you saying he doesn’t know you’re doing this?”

Loki showed all his teeth.  “He has made comments about certain discrepancies, along with the desire that they not become too noticeable.  I do worry about his health, though.”

Steve sighed.  “Why?”

“He does look distinctly ill when we have these discussions.”

Steve considered the ethics and decided on the whole Loki’s theft was probably more than outweighed by whatever dark purposes the money was actually intended for.

Loki tapped at his phone.  He angled the screen so Steve could see the photo on display:  Loki, white teeth vivid in his blue face, aiming a cheeky smile at the camera. 

“I do need a different nom de guerre than the ‘Blue Avenger’,” Loki commented. 

“We could always ask Stark,” Steve suggested, and laughed at Loki’s expression.

“No.”  Loki tapped at the phone again, and showed it to Steve.

The text message accompanying the photo read:  “Taking a vacation, Nick.” 

Loki finished the message with a laughing emoji and hit “send”.

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